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Heroes  of  the  Nations 

A  Series  of  Biographical  Studies  presenting  the 
lives  and  work  of  certain  representative  histori- 
cal characters,  about  whom  have  gathered  the 
traditions  of  the  nations  to  which  they  belong, 
and  who  have,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  been 
accepted  as  types  of  the  several  national  ideals. 


12°,  Illustrated,   cloth,   each,  $1.50 
Half  Leather,  gilt  top,  each,  $1.75 


FOR   FULL   LIST   SEE   END   OF  THIS   VOLUME 


Iberoes  of  the  IRattons 

EDITED    BY 

JEvelsn  Hbbott,  Oi.U. 

FELLOW  OF  BALLIOL  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


FACTA  DUCI8  VIVENT,  0PER08AQUE 
GLORIA  RERUM.— OVID,   IN  LIVIAM    265. 
THE  HERO'S  DEEDS  AND  HARD-WON 
FAME  SHALL  LIVE. 


OWEN  GLYNDWR 


OWEN  GLYNDWR 

AND   THE    LAST   STRUGGLE    FOR 
WELSH   INDEPENDENCE 

WITH  A  BRIEF  SKETCH  OF  WELSH  HISTORY 


BY 

ARTHUR  GRANVILLE  BRADLEY 

AUTHOR  OF    "highways  AND   BYWAYS  IN  NORTH  WALES,"   "  SKETCHES 

FROM   OLD   VIRGINIA,"    "  THE   FIGHT  WITH   FRANCE 

FOR   NORTH   AMERICA,"    ETC. 


>,  '     o  •    o' 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW    YORK  LONDON 

27  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET  24  BEDFORD  STREET,   STRAND 

8i^<  linukeibocher  '§ttM 
1901 


>J^ 


COPYRIGHT,  1901 
BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
HENRY  MC^S!^  "^TCFHCNS 


Ube  ftniclfterbocfiev  ^rese,  View  ItJorfc 


PREFACE 

IF  this  little  book  purported  to  be  a  biography  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  the  scantiness  of 
purely  personal  detail  relating  to  its  hero  might 
be  a  fair  subject  of  criticism.  But  men  of  the  Glyndwr 
type  live  in  history  rather  by  their  deeds,  and  the 
deeds  of  those  they  lead  and  inspire.  This  is  pe- 
culiarly the  case  with  the  last  and  the  most  cele- 
brated among  the  soldier  patriots  of  Wales.  Though 
so  little  remains  to  teli  us  of  the  actual  man  himself, 
this  very  fact  has  thrown  a  certain  glamour  and 
mystery  about  his  name  even  in  the  Principality. 
While  numbers  of  well-informed  Englishmen  are  in- 
clined to  regard  him,  so  far  as  they  regard  him  at 
all,  as  a  semi-mythical  hero  under  obligations  to 
Shakespeare  for  such  measure  of  renown  and  im- 
mortality as  he  enjoys,  if  the  shade  of  Henry  the 
Fourth  could  be  called  up  as  a  witness  it  would  tell 
a  very  different  story.  It  is  at  any  rate  quite  cert- 
ain that  for  the  first  few  years  of  the  fifteenth  cent- 
ury, both  to  England  and  to  Wales,  to  friends  and 
to  foes,  Owen  was  in  very  truth  a  sufficiently  real 
personality.  What  we  do  know  of  him,  apart  from 
his  work,  might  well  suggest  infinite  possibilities  to 
the  novelist  and  the  poet.     It  is  my  business,  how- 

iii 


508000 


iv  Preface 

ever,  to  deal  only  with  facts  or  to  record  legends  and 
traditions  for  what  they  are  worth,  as  illustrating 
the  men  and  the  time. 

Glyndwr  is  without  doubt  the  national  hero  of 
the  majority  of  Welshmen.  Precisely  why  he  takes 
precedence  of  warrior  princes  who  before  his  day 
struggled  so  bravely  with  the  Anglo-Norman  power 
and  often  with  more  permanent  success,  is  not  now 
to  the  point.  My  readers  will  be  able  to  form  some 
opinion  of  their  own  as  to  the  soundness  of  the 
Welsh  verdict.  But  these  are  matters,  after  all,  out- 
side logic  and  argument.  It  is  a  question  of  senti- 
ment which  has  its  roots  perhaps  in  sound  reasons 
now  forgotten.  There  are  in  existence  several  brief 
and  more  or  less  accurate  accounts  of  Glyndwr's 
rising.  Those  of  Thomas,  written  early  in  this  cent- 
ury, and  of  Pennant,  embodied  in  his  well  known 
Tours  in  Wales,  are  the  most  noteworthy, — while 
one  or  two  interesting  papers  represent  all  the  re- 
cent contributions  to  the  subject.  There  has  not 
hitherto,  however,  been  any  attempt  to  collect  in 
book  form  all  that  is  known  of  this  celebrated  Welsh- 
man and  the  movement  he  headed.  I  have,  there- 
fore, good  reason  to  believe  that  the  mere  collection 
and  arrangement  of  this  in  one  accessible  and  handy 
volume  will  not  be  unwelcome,  to  Welsh  readers 
especially.  Thus  much  at  least  I  think  I  have 
achieved,  and  the  thought  will  be  some  consolation, 
at  any  rate,  if  I  have  failed  in  the  not  very  easy  task 
of  presenting  the  narrative  in  sufificiently  popular 
and  readable  guise.  But  I  hope  also  to  engage  the 
interest  of  readers  other  than  Welshmen  in  the  story 


Preface  v 

of  Glyndwr  and  his  times.  If  one  were  to  say  that 
the  attitude  of  nearly  all  Englishmen  towards  Wales 
in  an  historical  sense  is  represented  by  a  total  blank, 
I  feel  quite  sure  that  the  statement  would  neither 
be  denied  nor  resented. 

Under  this  assumption  it  was  thought  well  to  at- 
tempt a  somewhat  fuller  picture  of  Wales  than  that 
presented  by  the  Glyndwr  period  alone,  and  to  lead 
up  to  this  by  an  outline  sketch  of  Welsh  history. 
The  earlier  part,  particularly,  of  this  contains  much 
contentious  matter.  But  in  such  a  rapid,  superficial 
survey  as  will  fully  answer  our  purpose  here,  there 
has  scarcely  been  occasion  to  go  below  those  salient 
features  that  are  pretty  generally  agreed  upon  by 
historians.  The  kind  manner  in  which  my  High- 
ways and  Byways  of  North  Wales  was  received,  not 
only  by  English  readers  but  by  Welsh  friends  and 
the  Welsh  press,  makes  me  venture  to  hope  that  my 
presumption  as  a  Saxon  in  making  this  more  serious 
excursion  into  the  domain  of  Welsh  history  will  be 
overlooked  in  consideration  of  the  subject  dealt 
with. 

A  continuous  intimacy  of  many  years  with  the 
Glyndyfrdwy  region  begat  a  natural  interest  in  the 
notable  personage  who  had  once  owned  it,  and  this 
gradually  ripened  into  a  desire  to  fill,  however  in- 
adequately, what  seemed  to  me  an  obvious  want. 
Before  venturing  on  the  task  I  took  some  pains  to 
ascertain  whether  any  Welsh  writer  had  the  matter 
in  contemplation,  and  so  far  as  information  gathered 
in  the  most  authoritative  quarters  could  be  effective 
it  was  in  the  negative.      As  this  was  at  a  time  when 


vi  •  Preface 


the  Welsh  people  were  considering  some  form  of 
National  memorial  to  Glyndwr,  the  absence  both  in 
fact  and  in  prospect  of  any  accessible  memoir  of 
him  overcame  what  diffidence  on  racial  grounds  I 
had  naturally  felt  and  encouraged  me  in  my  desire 
to  supply  the  want. 

A  full  list  of  the  authorities  I  have  consulted  in 
the  preparation  of  this  work  would,  I  have  reason  to 
understand,  be  too  ponderous  a  supplement  to  a 
volume  of  this  kind.  Before  noting  any  of  them, 
however,  I  must  first  acknowledge  the  very  great 
obligations  I  am  under  to  Professor  Wylie  for  his 
invaluable  and  exhaustive  history  of  Henry  IV. ;  not 
merely  for  the  information  contained  in  the  text  of 
his  book,  but  for  his  copious  notes  which  have  been 
most  helpful  in  indicating  many  sources  of  informa- 
tion connected  with  the  persons  and  events  of  the 
time.  The  following  are  some  of  the  chief  works 
consulted  :  Dr.  Powell's  translation  of  Humphrey 
Lloyd's  History  of  Wales  from  the  chronicle  of 
Caradoc  of  Llancarvan,  Ellis'  original  letters,  Annates 
CambricBj  Rymer's  Fcedera^  Williams*  History  of 
Wales f  Warrington's  History  of  Wales,  Tyler's  Henry 
v.,  Adam  of  Usk,  Matthew  of  Paris,  Hardyng's  and 
other  chronicles,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  the  his- 
torians Carte,  Walsingham,  and  Holinshed,  Bridge- 
man's  Princes  of  South  Wales,  Lloyd's  History  of 
the  Princes  of  Powys  Fadog,  the  lolo  MSS.,  Owen's 
Anciejit  Laws  and  Institutions  of  Wales,  Archce- 
ologia  Cambrensis,  the  Brut,  and,  of  course,  the  Rolls 
series.  Among  living  writers  who  have  been  help- 
ful in  various  ways  and  have   my  best  thanks  are 


Preface  vii 

Mr.  Robert  Owen,  of  Welshpool,  the  author  of 
Powysland,  the  Revd.  W.  G.  Dymock  Fletcher,  of 
Shrewsbury,  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the 
neighbouring  battle-field  ;  Professor  Tout,  who  has 
published  an  interesting  lecture  on  Glyndwr  and 
some  instructive  maps  connected  with  the  period ; 
and  Mr.  Henry  Owen,  the  well  known  authority  on 
Pembrokeshire  and  author  of  Gerald  the  Welshman  ; 
nor  must  I  omit  a  word  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Owen 
Edwards,  whose  kind  encouragement  materially  in- 
fluenced my  decision  to  undertake  this  book. 

I  am  under  most  particular  obligations  to  that 
well  known  Welsh  scholar,  Mr.  T.  Marchant  Wil- 
liams, for  suggestions  and  criticisms  when  the  book 
was  still  in  manuscript,  and  also  to  my  lamented 
friend,  the  late  Mr.  St.  John  Boddington,  of  Hunt- 
ington Court,  Herefordshire,  for  assistance  of  a 
somewhat  similar  nature. 

I  am  also  greatly  indebted  to  Miss  Walker,  of  Cor- 
wen,  for  several  photographic  scenes  in  Glyndyfrdwy, 
which  she  most  kindly  took  with  an  especial  view  to 
reproduction  in  these  pages,  and  to  Messrs.  H.  H. 
Hughes  and  W.  D.  Haydon,  both  of  Shrewsbury, 
who  rendered  a  like  service  in  the  matter  of  Glyndwr's 
other  residence  at  Sycherth. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PACK 

INTRODUCTION I 

The  Romans  in  Wales — Cunedda — Christianity — Arrival  of 
Saxons — Their  Conquest  of  Severn  Valley — The  Latin  and 
Welsh  Churches — The  Three  Divisions  of  Wales — Arrival 
of  Danes — Strathclyde  Britons  Occupy  Vale  of  Clwyd — 
Howel  Dda  and  His  Laws — Growing  Intercourse  between 
Welsh  and  Saxons — Llewelyn  I. — Griffith  ap  Llewelyn — 
Harold's  Invasions  of  Wales — Arrival  of  Normans — William 
I.  and  William  Rufus  in  Wales — Norman  Conquest  of 
Glamorgan — The  Flemings  Settle  in  Pembroke — Wars  be- 
tween Owen  Gwynedd  and  Henry  II. — Howel  ap  Owen 
Gwynedd — Dafydd  ap  Owen  Gwynedd — Geraldus  Capi- 
brensis  on  the  Welsh — Religious  Awakening  in  the  Twelfth 
Century — Powys  and  the  English  Power — Llewelyn  the 
Great,  1195 — King  John's  Invasion  of  Wales — Llewelyn  re- 
cognised as  Ruler  of  All  Wales — Dafydd  ap  Llewelyn  Suc- 
ceeds— He  Persecutes  his  Brother  Griffith  and  Makes  War 
on  the  English— Henry  III.  in  Wales — Llewelyn  ap  Griffith, 
Last  Prince  in  Wales — Long  Struggle  against  Henry  III. 
and  Edward  I. — Death  of  Llewelyn  and  his  Brother  Dafydd 
— Final  Conquest  of  Wales — Edward  I.  Enacts  Statutes  of 
Rhuddlan,  Builds  Castles,  and  Provides  for  the  Future  Gov- 
ernment of  the  Country — Wales  between  the  Conquest  and 
Glyndwr's  Rising. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  II 

PAGE 

BIRTH  AND  EARLY  LIFE,  1359-1399    .  .  .  .82 

Owen's  Birth  and  Descent — His  Youth — His  Connection 
with  Henry  IV.  and  Richard  II. — Sycherth — Glyndyfrdwy 
— Marriage — Family. 

CHAPTER  III 

GLYNDWR  AND  LORD  GREY  OF  RUTHIN,  14OO-140I  .  1 10 
Lord  Grey  of  Ruthin — Anglo- Welsh  Towns — Owen's  Un- 
successful Lawsuit — Contemptuous  Treatment  by  the  Eng- 
lish Court — Bad  Faith  of  Grey  towards  Owen — Griffith  ap 
David — Grey  Appeals  for  Aid  against  Welsh  Insurgents — 
Grey's  Attempt  to  Capture  Owen — Owen  Assumes  the  Lead- 
ership— lolo  Goch — Owen  Raids  Ruthin — The  King  In- 
vades Wales  but  to  no  Purpose — The  Prince  of  Wales  Left 
in  Command  at  Chester — Owen  Winters  at  Glyndyfrdwy. 

CHAPTER  IV 

OWEN  AND  THE  PERCYS,    1401 135 

Hotspur  in  North  Wales — Prince  Henry — Conway  Taken 
by  the  Welsh — Retaken  by  the  English — Percy  Acts  against 
the  Welsh — Owen  Goes  to  Plimlimmon — War  Carried  to  the 
South  —  Flemings  of  Pembroke  Defeated  by  Glyndwr — 
Owen  Triumphs  in  South  Wales — King  Henry  again  In- 
vades Wales — The  King  in  Cardigan — Invasion  without 
Result — The  English  Army  Retires  to  Shrewsbury — Owen 
and  the  Percys — Welsh  Social  Divisions — Owen  Captures 
Grey  at  Ruthin — Grey  Held  to  Ransom. 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  KING  AND  HOTSPUR,   1402 163 

Portents — Bishop  Trevor — Howel  Sele — Mortimer  Defeated 
at  Pilleth,  and  Taken  Prisoner — The  King  Refuses  to  Ran- 
som Mortimer — Glyndwr  in  Carnarvonshire — Great  Invasion 
of  Wales  by  King  Henry — Magic  and  Tempests  Overwhelm 
.  the  English  Advance — Defeat  of  the  Scots  at  Homildon — 
Hotspur  and  the  King  Dispute  about  Scottish  Prisoners — 
Mortimer  Invites  His  Radnor  Tenants  to  Join  Glyndwr. 


Contents  xi 


CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE 

THE  BATTLE  OF  SHREWSBURY,   I403    .  .  .  .    185 

The  King  in  Need  of  Money — Prince  Henry  at  Shrews- 
bury—  He  Destroys  Owen's  Property  —  Letter  from  the 
Prince  Concerning  this — Glyndwr  in  the  Vale  of  Towy — 
Victory  of  Anglo-Flenaings  near  Carmarthen — Urgent  Ap- 
peal for  Royal  Assistance  from  Brecon — Petitions  for  the 
Same  from  Herefordshire  —  The  Welsh  Overrun  Western 
Herefordshire  —  Glyndwr  at  Carmarthen  —  He  Consults  a 
Soothsayer — The  Plot  of  the  Percys — Battle  of  Shrewsbury 
— Glyndwr's  Connection  with  the  Movement—  He  Appears  in 
Flint — The  King  Prepares  for  the  Invasion  of  Wales. 

CHAPTER  VII 

OWEN  AND  THE  FRENCH,  1403-1404  .  .  .212 

Beleaguered  Castles  —  The  King  Invades  Wales  —  He 
Reaches  Carmarthen  and  Hurries  Home  Again — Glyndwr 
Takes  more  Castles  and  harries  Herefordshire  —  The 
French  Land  at  Carmarthen — Anglesey — Carnarvon — Glyn- 
dwr Captures  Harlech — He  Calls  a  Parliament  at  Machyn- 
lleth— Davy  Gam — Glyndwr  Sends  Ambassadors  to  Paris 
— Bishop  Trevor  Joins  the  Welsh — Herefordshire  and  the 
English  Borders  Ravaged — Urgent  Appeals  for  Succour  to 
the  King — The  Earl  of  Warwick  Defeats  Glyndwr — Glyn- 
dwr Gains  a  Victory — He  Forces  Shropshire  to  Make  Terms 
—Owen's  Court  at  Harlech— lolo  Goch. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

WELSH  REVERSES,  1405 237 

Desolation  of  Wales — Owen's  Methods  of  Warfare — Coun- 
try Houses  of  the  Period — Welsh  Rural  Life  and  Population 
— Glyndwr  Not  a  Rebel — Lady  Despencer  and  the  Young 
Princes — Prince  Henry's  Letter  on  the  Battle — Welsh  De- 
feated at  Mynydd-y-Pwll-Melyn — Owen's  Brother  Killed, 
and  his  Son  Captured — The  Percys  Rise  in  the  North — De- 
pression among  Owen's  Followers — Landing  of  the  French 


xii  Contents 


PAGE 

at  Milford— The  Allies  March  to  Worcester  —  Battle  of 
Woodbury  Hill — Retreat  of  Franco- Welsh  Army  to  Wales 
— King  Henry  Unsuccessfully  Invades  Wales — Cadogan 
of  the  Battle-axe — Departure  of  the  French — Pembroke 
Makes  Terms  with  Owen. 

CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRIPARTITE  INDENTURE,   1406    .  .  .  .    263 

The  Tripartite  Indenture — Defeat  and  Execution  of  Lord 
Percy  and  Bardolph — Owen's  Letter  from  Pennal  to  the 
King  of  France — The  Papal  Schism — Owen's  Star  Waning 
— Anglesey — Dejection  in  the  Vale  of  Towy — Glyndwr's 
Lonely  Wanderings— The  Valle  Crucis  Story— The  Ber- 
krolle's  Story — lolo  Goch's  Lament. 

CHAPTER  X. 

ABERYSTWITH.  OWEN's  POWER  DECLINES,  1407-1409  284 
Owen's  Movements  Vague — The  King  Failing  in  Health 
but  Anxious  to  Enter  Wales — Preparations  for  Siege  of 
Aberystwith — The  King  Shrinks  from  Going  to  Wales — 
A  General  Pestilence — Prince  Henry  Leads  a  Large  Force 
to  Aberystwith — Terms  of  Surrender  Arranged — Agreement 
Upset  by  Owen's  Sudden  Appearance — Fall  of  Aberystwith 
and  Harlech — Death  of  Mortimer — Owen  Sinks  into  a 
Guerilla  Leader — Pardons  and  Punishments — Death  in  Paris 
of  Bishop  Trevor. 

CHAPTER  XI 

LAST  YEARS  OF  Owen's  LIFE,  1410-1416   .        .        .  300 

Harsh  Laws  Enacted  against  the  Welsh — Davy  Gam — A 
General  Pardon  Offered  by  Henry  V. — Owen  an  Outlaw  in 
the  Mountains — Owen,  Left  Alone,  Disappears  from  History 
—  Henry  V.  Sends  him  a  Special  Pardon  —  Kentchurch 
or  Monnington  the  Scene  of  Owen's  Death — Some  Remarks 
on  his  Policy. 


Contents 


Xlll 


CHAPTER  XII 


CONCLUSION 

Wales  after  Glyndwr. 


PAGE 

310 


APPENDIX 


THE  BARDS 


333 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


glyndwr's  mount,  glyndyfrdwy  *     Frontispiece 


PAGB 


CAREW    CASTLE 40 

[From  old  print.] 

CORWEN    AND    PEN    Y    PIGIN,    FROM    THE   DEE  '  .         44 

VALLEY    CRUCIS   ABBEY  ' 54 

CONWAY    CASTLE  '  .  .  .  .  .  '  1^ 

DOLGELLY    AND    CADER   IDRIS  *         .  .  .  .82 

HOLT    CASTLE Zd 

[From  old  print.] 

POWYS   CASTLE 92 

[From  an  old  engraving  from   painting  by  W. 
Daniells.] 

LLANGOLLEN    AND    DINAS   BRAN  ^    .  .  .  .96 

SYCHERTH,    FROM    THE   SOUTH  '        .  .  .  .       lOO 

RUTHIN    CASTLE IIO 

[From  old  print.] 
AN   OLD    STREET,    SHREWSBURY  "      .  .  .  .       I20 

^  Copyright,  Miss  Walker.  *  Copyright,  C.  H.  Young* 

'^  Copyright,  W.  Davis.  '^  Copyright,  W.  D.  Hayson. 

8  Copyright,  F.  Frith  &  Co.  «  Copyright,  J.  Bartlett. 

XV 


XVI 


Illustrations 


CARCHARDY    OWAIN,  GLYNDWR's    PRISON  HOUSE    AT 

LLANSANTFFRAID  *  .  .  .  . 

INTERIOR    CONWAY    CASTLE  '^  ... 

OLD  BRIDGE  AT  LLANSANTFFRAID,  GLYNDYFRDWY 
LOOKING    UP    THE    MAWDDACH    FROM    NANNAU  ' 
OLD    LODGE    AT    NANNAU,    NEAR    THE   SITE    OF    THE 


PILLETH    HILL,    RADNORSHIRE 
SYCHERTH,    FROM    THE    NORTH  "       . 

HAY  " 

BATTLE-FIELD    CHURCH,    NEAR    SHREWSBURY 
CARNARVON    CASTLE  ^     . 

machynlleth  ^ 

Owen's  council  house,  dolgelly' 

HARLECH  '...;.. 
CAERPHILLY   CASTLE  "     . 
MANORBRIER   CASTLE  '    . 
ABERYSWITH    CASTLE  "^    . 
MONNINGTON    COURT    AND    CHURCH  ' 


'  Copyright,  Miss  Walker. 

*  Copyright,  F.  Frith  &  Co. 
»  Copyright,  C.  H.  Young. 

*  Copyright,  R.  St.  John  Boddington. 
5  Copyright,  H.  H.  Hughes. 

"  Copyright,  Marion  &  Co. 
'  Copyright,  J.  Bartlett. 
8  Copyright,  W.  H.  Bustin. 


130 

140 

166 

168 
176 
186 
190 
200 
218 
220 
224 
232 
244 
262 
290 
300 


Illustrations 


xvii 


PAGE 

PORCH    OF    MONNINGTON    CHURCH    AND   GLYNDWR's 

REPUTED    GRAVE  ^ 308 

PEMBROKE   castle' 312 

[From  a  photograph.] 

KENTCHURCH    COURT,    WITH    GLYNDWR's   TOWER*.      314 


'  Copyright,  Mrs.  Leather. 

2  Copyright,  F.  Frith  &  Co. 

3  Copyright,  W.  H.  Bustin. 


XXM'^M^ 

'^^^^M 

M-k'tJ' 

^^^^^^^fej 

^^^ 

^^ 

OWEN  GLYNDWR 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY  SKETCH  OF  WELSH  HISTORY  FROM 

THE   SAXON   CONQUEST   OF  ENGLAND   TO  THE 

RISING  OF  GLYNDWR 

400-1400 

THE  main  subject  of  this  book  is  the  man  whose 
memory,  above  that  of  all  other  men,  the  Welsh 
as  a  people  delight  to  honour,  and  that  period 
of  Welsh  history  which  he  made  so  stormy  and  so 
memorable.  But  having  what  there  is  some  reason 
to  regard  as  a  well  founded  opinion  that  (to  the  vast 
majority  of  English  readers)  the  story  of  Wales  is 
practically  a  blank,  it  seems  to  me  desirable  to  pre- 
pare the  way  in  some  sort  for  the  advent  of  my  hero 
upon  this,  the  closing  scene  of  Cambrian  glory.  I 
shall  therefore  begin  with  a  rapid  sketch  of  those 
nine  centuries  which,  ending  with  Glyndwr's  rising, 
constitute  roughly  in  a  political  and  military  sense 
the  era  of  Welsh  nationality.     It   is  an   audacious 


"z]    ':  ;.\  ,}  Owe7i  Glyndwr  [400- 

venture,  I  am  very  well  aware,  and  more  especially  so 
when  brought  within  the  compass  of  a  single  chapter. 
Among  the  many  difficulties  that  present  them- 
selves in  contemplating  an  outline  sketch  of  Welsh 
history,  a  doubt  as  to  the  best  period  for  beginning 
it  can  hardly  be  included.  Unless  one  is  prepared 
to  take  excursions  into  the  realms  of  pure  conjecture 
and  speculation,  which  in  these  pages  would  be  al- 
together out  of  place,  the  only  possible  epoch  at 
which  to  open  such  a  chapter  is  the  Saxon  conquest 
of  England.  And  I  lay  some  stress  on  the  word 
England,  because  the  fact  of  Wales  resisting  both 
Saxon  conquest  and  even  Saxon  influence  to  any 
appreciable  extent,  at  this  early  period,  is  the  key- 
note to  its  history. 

What  the  British  tribes  were  like,  who,  prior  to 
this  fifth  century,  lived  under  Roman  rule  in  the 
country  we  now  call  Wales,  no  man  may  know.  We 
do  know,  however,  that  the  Romans  were  as  firmly 
seated  there  as  in  most  parts  of  Britain.  From  their 
strong  garrisons  at  Chester,  Uriconium,  Caerleon, 
and  elsewhere  they  kept  the  country  to  the  west- 
ward quiet  by  means  of  numerous  smaller  posts.  That 
their  legions  moved  freely  about  the  country  we 
have  evidence  enough  in  the  metalled  causeways 
that  can  still  be  traced  in  almost  every  locality  be- 
neath the  mountain  sod.  The  traces,  too,  of  their 
mining  industry  are  still  obvious  enough  in  the 
bowels  of  the  mountains  and  even  beneath  the 
sea,  to  say  nothing  of  surface  evidence  yet  more 
elaborate.     That  their  soldiers  fell  here  freely  in  the 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  3 

cause  of  order  or  of  conquest  is  written  plainly  enough 
in  the  names  and  epitaphs  on  mortuary  stones  that 
in  districts  even  now  remote  have  been  exposed  by 
the  spade  or  plough.  But  how  much  of  Christianity, 
how  much  of  Roman  civilisation,  these  primitive 
Britons  of  the  West  had  absorbed  in  the  four  cent- 
uries of  Roman  occupation  is  a  matter  quite  outside 
the  scope  of  these  elementary  remarks.  Of  civilisa- 
tion beyond  the  influence  of  the  garrisons  there  was 
probably  little  or  none.  As  regards  Christianity,  its 
echoes  from  the  more  civilised  parts  of  the  island 
had  probably  found  their  way  there,  and  affected 
the  indigenous  paganism  of  the  mountains  to  an  ex- 
tent that  is  even  yet  a  fruitful  source  of  disagree- 
ment among  experts.  Lastly,  as  it  seems  probable 
that  the  population  of  what  is  now  called  Wales 
was  then  much  more  sparse  in  proportion  to  the  rest 
of  the  island  than  in  subsequent  periods,  its  condi- 
tion becomes  a  matter  of  less  interest,  which  is 
fortunate,  seeing  we  know  so  little  about  it. 

With  the  opening  of  the  fifth  century  the  Romans 
evacuated  Britain.  By  the  middle  of  it  the  Saxon 
influx,  encouraged,  as  every  schoolboy  knows,  by 
the  Britons  themselves  in  their  weakness,  had  com- 
menced. Before  its  close  the  object  of  the  new-com- 
ers had  developed  and  the  "  Making  of  England  " 
was  in  full  operation. 

For  these  same  conquered  Britons  many  of  us,  I 
think,  started  hfe  with  some  tinge  of  contempt, 
mingled  with  the  pity  that  beyond  all  doubt  they 
fully  merit.  Mr.  Green  has  protested  in  strong 
terms  against  so  unjustifiable  an  attitude.     He  asks 


4  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

us  to  consider  the  condition  of  a  people,  who  in  a 
fiercely  warlike  age,  had  been  for  many  generations 
forbidden  to  bear  arms ;  who  were  protected  by  an 
alien  army  from  all  fear  of  molestation,  and  encour- 
aged, moreover,  to  apply  themselves  zealously  to  the 
arts  of  peace.  That  men  thus  enervated  made  a 
resistance  so  prolonged  is  the  wonder,  not  that  they 
eventually  gave  way.  If  this  nation,  which  resisted 
for  a  hundred  years,  is  a  fit  subject  for  criticism, 
what  can  be  said  of  their  conquerors  who,  five  cent- 
uries later,  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  warlike  habits  and 
civil  liberty,  were  completely  crushed  in  seven  by  a 
no  more  formidable  foe  ? 

While  the  pagan  Saxons  were  slowly  fighting  their 
way  across  England  towards  the  Severn  and  the 
Dee,  the  country  about  and  behind  these  rivers  had 
been  galvanised  by  various  influences  into  an  alto- 
gether new  importance. 

After  the  departure  of  the  Romans,  the  Welsh 
tribes,  less  enervated  probably  than  their  more  Ro- 
manised fellow-countrymen  to  the  east,  found  in  the 
Scots  of  Ireland  rather  than  the  Picts  of  the  North 
their  deadliest  foes.  It  was  against  these  western 
rovers  that  the  indigenous  natives  of  what  for  brev- 
ity's sake  we  are  calling  Wales,  relearnt  in  the  fifth 
century  the  art  of  war,  and  the  traces  of  their  con- 
flicts are  strewn  thick  along  the  regions  that  face  the 
Irish  Sea.  But  while  these  contests  were  still  in 
progress,  three  powerful  tides  of  influence  of  a  sort 
wholly  different  poured  into  Wales  and  contributed 
towards  its  solidity,  its  importance,  its  defensive 
power,  and  its  moral  elevation. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  5 

(i)  Out  of  the  north,  from  Cumbria  and  Strath- 
clyde,  came  the  great  prince  and  warrior  Cunedda, 
whose  family  seem  to  have  taken  posses-  400-500, 
sion,  with  or  without  resistance,  of  large  cunedda. 
tracts  of  Wales,  Merioneth,  Cardigan,  and  many  other 
districts  deriving  their  names  in  fact  from  his  sons. 
His  progeny  and  their  belongings  became  in  some 
sort  a  ruling  caste ;  a  faint  reflection  of  what  the 
Normans  were  in  later  days  to  England. 

Cunedda  is  said  to  have  held  his  Court  at  Carlisle, 
and  to  have  wielded  immense  power  in  the  north 
and  north-west  of  Britain.  If  he  did  not  go  to  Wales 
in  person  he  undoubtedly  planted  in  it  his  numerous 
and  warlike  offspring,  who,  with  their  following,  are 
usually  regarded  as  the  founders  of  the  later  tribal 
fabric  of  Wales,  the  remote  ancestors,  in  theory  at 
any  rate,  of  the  Welsh  landed  gentry  of  to-day  ;  but 
this  is  a  perilous  and  complex  subject. 

(2)  In  this  century,  too,  came  the  first  wave  of  a 
real  and  effective  Christianity,  with  its  troops  of  mis- 
sionaries from  Brittany  and  Ireland,  in  the 

1        r       1   •    1  11  e  c-        Christianity. 

front  rank  of  which  stand  the  names  of  St. 
David  and  Germanus  or  Garmon,  Bishop  of  Auxerre. 
The  latter  is  generally  credited  with  the  organisation 
of  the  Welsh  Church,  hitherto  so  vague  and  unde- 
fined. It  was,  at  any  rate,  during  this  period,  that 
the  Church  assumed  definite  territorial  form,  and 
that  the  Welsh  diocese  and  the  Welsh  parish,  their 
boundaries  roughly  approximating  to  the  present 
ones,  came  into  existence.  Through  the  fifth, 
sixth,  and  well  into  the  seventh  century,  church 
building  and  religious  activity  of  all  kinds  flourished 


\ 


6  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

marvellously  in  Wales ;  while  Christianity  was  being 
steadily  and  ruthlessly  stamped  out  over  the  rest  of 
Britain  by  the  advancing  pagans,  native  chieftains 
vied  with  foreign  ecclesiastics  in  building  churches, 
cathedrals,  and  cells;  and  great  monastic  houses 
arose,  of  which  Bangor  Iscoed,  on  the  Dee,  with  its 
two  or  three  thousand  inmates,  was  the  most  notable. 
The  mountainous  region  that  in  former  days  had 
been  among  those  least  influenced  by  it  was  now 
the  hope  of  the  island,  the  seat  of  religious  fervour, 
the  goal  of  the  foreign  missionary  and  the  wandering 
saint. 

(3)  The  third,  and  perhaps  not  the  least  powerful, 
factor  in  the  making  of  Wales  was  the  advance  of  the 
Arrival  of  the  Saxons.  After  their  great  victory  of  De- 
saxons,  577.  orham  they  destroyed  the  British  strong- 
holds of  Bath,  Gloucester,  and  Cirencester,  and  about 
the  year  577,  or  130  years  after  their  first  landing 
in  Britain,  they  appeared  on  the  Severn.  The 
exact  fate  or  disposal  of  the  natives,  whom  with 
ceaseless  fighting  they  thus  drove  before  them,  is  a 
matter  of  perennial  controversy.  The  ferocity  of  the 
conquerors,  aggravated,  no  doubt,  by  the  stubborn 
resistance  of  the  conquered,  is  a  fact  beyond  all 
question  and  should  be  emphasised,  since  its  direful 
memories  had  much  to  do  with  the  inextinguishable 
hatred  that  was  felt  for  so  many  centuries,  and  to  a 
certain  degree  is  still  felt,  by  many  Welshmen  to- 
wards their  Saxon  foes.  It  may  fairly  be  assumed 
that  the  extirpation  (though  the  term  is  much  too 
strong)  of  the  native  stock  was  most  marked  in  the 
eastern  parts   of    Britain,  and   that  as  the  tide   of 


14001  Introductory  Sketch  7 

conquest  swept  westward  its  results  in  this  particular 
were  much  modified.  But  however  great  the  slaugh- 
ter or  however  considerable  the  native  element  that 
was  retained  upon  the  soil  by  its  conquerors,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  the  influx  of  British  refugees  into 
Wales  throughout  the  sixth  century  must  have  been 
very  large.  Among  them,  too,  no  doubt,  g^j^j^j^  ^^^^^_ 
went  numbers  of  men  and  women  of  ees  in  sixth 
learning,  of  piety,  and  sometimes  perhaps  century. 
even  of  wealth,  for  one  need  not  suppose  that  every 
Briton  waited  to  be,  driven  from  his  home  at  the 
spear's  point. 

A  fierce  onslaught  in  great  force  brought  the  in- 
vaders to  the  walls  of  the  Roman-British  city  of 
Uriconium,  where  Cynddylan,  Prince  of  cynddyian  at 
Powys,   with   all    the    power   of    Central      Uriconium 

_,.    /  -  .       t  ,,  rr  and  Shrews- 

Wales,  made  a  vam  but  gallant  effort  to  bury. 

arrest  the  ruin : 

Cynddylan  with  heart  like  the  ice  of  winter. 
Cynddylan  with  heart  like  the  fire  of  spring. 

He  and  his  brothers  were  at  length  all  slain,  and  his 
armies  routed.  Uriconium  or  Tren  was  sacked,  and 
higher  up  the  valley  the  royal  palace  at  Pengwern, 
as  Shrewsbury  was  then  called,  was  destroyed. 

These  terrible  scenes  are  described  for  us  by 
Llywarch  Hen,  one  of  the  earliest  British  bards, 
himself  an  actor  in  them,  who  thus  laments  over  the 
wreck  of  Pengwern  : 

"  The  Hall  of  Cynddylan  is  dark 
To-night,  without  fire,  without  bed  ; 
I  '11  weep  awhile,  afterwards  I  shall  be  silent. 


Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 


"  The  Hall  of  Cynddylan  is  gloomy 
To-night,  without  fire,  without  songs  ; 
Tears  are  running  down  my  cheeks. 

"  The  Hall  of  Cynddylan,  it  pierces  my  heart 
To  see  it  roofless,  fireless  ; 
Dead  is  my  chief,  yet  I  am  living." 

or  again,  on  the  destruction  of  Tren : 

"  The  eagle  of  Pengwern  screamed  aloud  to-night 
For  the  blood  of  men  he  watched  ; 
Tren  may  indeed  be  called  a  ruined  town. 

"  Slain  were  my  comrades  all  at  once 
Cynan,  Cynddylan,  Cyncraith, 
Defending  Tren  the  wasted  city." 

In  a  few  years  the  Saxons  were  beaten  back,  and 
Pengwern,  with  the  surrounding  country,  once  more 
became  British,  and  remained  so  till  the  days  of 
Offa,  King  of  Mercia. 

By  the  close  of  the  sixth  century  Christianity  had 
been  introduced  by  Augustine  into  the  south- 
eastern corner  of  England,  and  there  is  no  more 
suggestive  scene  in  Welsh  history  than  the  famous 
meeting  of  the  great  missionary  with  the  Welsh 
bishops  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn.  It  accentuates 
in  a  striking  manner  the  cleavage  between  the 
Eastern  or  the  Latin  Church,  and  that  of  the  West 
and  of  the  Welsh.     Augustine,  about  the 

Augustine  ^  » 

and  the  Welsh  year  6oi,  frcsh  from  his  victories  over 
bishops,  601.  paganism  among  the  Kentish  Saxons,  and 
having  journeyed  far  through  still  heathen  regions, 
approaches  these  Western  Christians  with  a  kindly 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  9 

but  somewhat  supercilious  and  superior  air.  The 
seven  Welsh  bishops  —  or  so-called  bishops,  for  the 
full  development  of  the  office  as  understood  later 
was  not  yet  completed  —  were  ready  waiting  for 
him  on  the  banks  of  the  lower  Severn.  They  were 
a  deputation  of  the  Welsh  Church,  and,  seeming 
already  to  scent  patronage  in  the  air,  were  fully 
prepared  to  resent  any  sign  of  it  in  the  Roman  mis- 
sionary. The  latter,  it  appears,  knew  very  little 
about  the  Western  Church,  with  its  roots  in  Ireland, 
Armorica,  and  Gaul,  and  what  he  did  know  he  did 
not  like. 

The  arrogance  of  Augustine  fully  justified  the 
Welshmen's  suspicions,  and  he  still  further  roused 
their  indignation  by  hinting  that  they  should  take 
their  instructions  and  receive  their  consecration  from 
Canterbury,  as  representing  Rome.  Coming  from  a 
man  who  appeared  to  them  but  the  missionary 
bishop  of  a  handful  of  recently  converted  barbari- 
ans, this  was  a  little  too  much  for  ecclesiastics  who 
had  behind  them  three  or  four  centuries  of  Christian- 
ity, and  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  Latin  Church. 
Augustine,  too,  spoke  disparagingly  of  their  customs, 
and  with  particular  severity  of  the  absence  of  celi- 
bacy in  their  Church.  This  must  have  touched  them 
to  the  quick,  seeing  that  numbers  of  the  offices  and 
benefices  in  the  Western  Church  were  more  or  less 
hereditary,  and  that  even  saintship  was  frequently 
a  matter  of  family,  the  tribal  sentiment  being  pre- 
dominant. All  these  things,  together  with  their  dif- 
ference in  Easter  observance  and  in  shaving  the 
head,  horrified  Augustine,  and  he  spoke  so  freely  as 


lo  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

to  put  all  hope  of  combination  out  of  the  question. 
Indeed,  the  Welsh  divines  were  so  offended  that 
they  refused  even  to  break  bread  beneath  the  same 
roof  as  the  Roman  saint.  At  a  second  confer- 
ence Augustine,  seeing  he  had  gone  too  far,  pro- 
posed that,  even  if  they  could  not  conform  to  each 
other's  customs,  they  should  at  least  combine  in 
efforts  to  convert  the  rest  of  England.  Such  endea- 
vours did  not  commend  themselves  in  the  least  to 
the  Welshmen.  Whatever  missionary  zeal  may  have 
existed  among  Welsh  churchmen  it  did  not  include 
the  slightest  anxiety  about  the  souls  of  the  accursed 
conquerors  of  Britain,  the  ruthless  ravagers  and  de- 
stroyers of  their  once  civilised  and  Christian  country. 
It  is  probable  that  Augustine  did  not  realise  the 
fierce  hate  of  the  despoiled  Celt  towards  the  Saxon. 
At  any  rate  his  patience  at  length  gave  way,  and  as 
a  parting  shot  he  in  effect  told  the  Welshmen  that 
since  they  shewed  themselves  so  criminally  careless 
about  Saxons'  souls,  they  should  of  a  surety  feel  the 
prick  of  Saxon  spears.  This  random  threat,  for  it 
could  have  been  nothing  more,  was  strangely  ful- 
filled within  a  few  years'  time,  when  the  victory  of 
the  pagan  Ethelfred  at  Chester,  which  sundered  the 
Britons  of  Wales  from  those  of  North- Western  Eng- 
land, culminated  in  the  sacking  of  Bangor  Iscoed 
and  the  slaughter  of  twelve  hundred  monks. 

This  futile  conference  of  601  marks  the  beginning 
of  the  long  struggle  of  the  Welsh  or  Ancient  Brit- 
ish Church  to  keep  clear  of  the  authority 
of   Canterbury,    and    it    lasted    for    some 
five  hundred  years.     Till  the  close  of  the  eleventh 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  1 1 

century  the  bishops  of  the  four  Welsh  dioceses  were, 
as  a  rule,  consecrated  by  their  own  brethren.  St. 
David's  perhaps  took  rank  as  *'  primus  inter  pares  " 
for  choice,  but  not  of  necessity,  for  there  was  no 
recognised  Welsh  metropolitan.  Ages  afterwards, 
when  Canterbury  had  insidiously  encroached  upon 
these  privileges,  the  Welsh  clergy  were  wont  to 
soothe  their  wounded  pride  by  the  assurance  that 
this  transfer  of  consecration  had  come  about  as  a 
matter  of  convenience  rather  than  of  right.  Long, 
indeed,  before  the  final  conquest  of  Welshmen  by 
Edward  the  First,  their  Church  had  been  completely 
conquered,  anomalous  though  such  an  inverted  pro- 
cess seems,  by  Norman  bishops.  A  Welshman, 
though  his  sword  might  still  win  him  political  recog- 
nition and  respect,  had  little  more  chance  of  Church 
preferment  in  the  thirteenth  century  than  he  had  in 
the  eighteenth  or  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth. 
As  early  indeed  as  1180  that  clerical  aristocrat  of 
royal  Welsh  and  noble  Norman  blood,  Giraldus 
Cambrensis,  pertinently  asks  the  same  question 
which  from  generation  to  generation  and  from  reign 
to  reign  through  the  Hanoverian  period  must  have 
been  on  every  native  churchman's  tongue  in  the 
PrincipaHty,  "  Is  it  a  crime  to  be  a  Welshman  ?  " 

There  is  no  occasion  to  enlarge  upon  the  subtle 
methods  by  which  the  Norman  Church  anticipated 
the  Norman  sword  in  Wales.  Sleepless  ^j^^  ^atin  and 
industry   no  doubt    was   one.     Another  British 

was  the  agency  of  the  newer  monasteries, 
filled  with  Norman,  English,  and  foreign  monks  and 
for   the   most  part  devoted  to  the  Latin   Church. 


Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 


Persistent  denial  of  the  validity  of  St.  David's  in  the 
matter  of  consecration  may  in  time,  too,  like  the 
continuous  drip  of  water  on  a  stone,  have  had  its 
effect  upon  the  Welsh,  even  against  their  better 
judgment.  On  one  occasion  we  know  that  some  of 
their  princes  and  nobles,  stung  by  what  they  re- 
garded as  excessive  exactions  on  the  part  of  the 
Church,  stooped  so  far  as  to  throw  in  the  faces  of 
their  prelates  the  taunt  that  their  consecration  was 
invalid.  Such  an  attitude  did  not  tend  to  lighten 
the  immense  pressure  which  was  exercised  in  favour 
of  the  supremacy  of  Canterbury  ;  and  long  before 
Welsh  princes  had  begun  to  take  orders  from  Nor- 
man kings,  Welsh  bishops  were  seeking  consecration 
from  Canterbury,  unless  indeed  their  thrones  were 
already  filled  by  Norman  priests. 

It  is  not  only  the  ecclesiastical  but  also  the  secular 
divisions  of  Wales,  that  in  a  great  measure  date  from 
these  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  The  three  chief 
Kingdoms,  or  Principalities,  into  which  the  country 
was  apportioned,  stand  out  from  these  days  with  con- 
sistent clearness  till  they  are  gradually  broken  into 
Divisions  of  fragments  by  the  Norman  power:  On 
Wales.  ^]^g  north  was  Gwynedd  ;  in  the  centre, 

Powys ;  on  the  south,  Deheubarth  or  South  Wales. 
As  St.  David's  was  the  premier  see  of  the  four  Welsh 
dioceses,  so  Gwynedd  was  even  more  markedly  the 
first  among  the  three  Welsh  Kingdoms.  Its  ruler, 
when  a  sufficiently  strong  man  to  enforce  it,  had  a 
recognised  right  to  the  title  of  "  Pendragon  "  and 
the  lip  homage  of  his  brother  princes.  When  a 
weak  one,  however,  filled  the  precarious  throne,  any 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  13 

attempt  to  exact  even  such  an  empty  tribute  would 
have  been  a  signal  for  a  general  outbreak. 

Gwynedd  included  the  present  counties*  of  Flint, 
Anglesey,  Carnarvon,  and  most  of  Merioneth,  to- 
gether with  the  northern  part  of  Denbighshire. 

Powys  cannot  be  so  readily  defined  in  a  line  or 
two,  but,  roughly  speaking,  it  was  a  triangle  or  wedge 
driven  through  Central  Wales  to  a  point 

Powys. 

on  the  sea,  with  a  wide  base  resting  on  the 
English  border,  the  present  county  of  Montgomery 
representing  its  chief  bulk.  Its  capital  w^as  Peng- 
wern  or  Shrewsbury,  till  the  eighth  century,  when 
Offa,  King  of  Mercia,  enraged  at  the  inroads  of  the 
Welsh,  gathered  together  his  whole  strength  and 
thrust  them  permanently  back  from  the  plains  of 
Shropshire  to  the  rampart  of  hills  along  whose  crests 
he  made  the  famous  Dyke  that  bears  his  name. 
Thenceforward  Mathraval,  and  subsequently  Welsh- 
pool, became  the  abode  of  the  Princes  of  Powys. 


*  The  present  counties  of  Wales  were  not  in  existence  as  such  till 
after  the  final  conquest  by  Edward  I.  Even  then,  as  we  shall  see, 
only  six  were  created  ;  the  larger  part  of  the  Principality  retaining  its 
feudal  lordships  until  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  There  were  ancient 
subdivisions  of  the  three  Welsh  Kingdoms  ruled  over  by  petty 
Princes  owing  allegiance  to  their  immediate  overlord  ;  and  their 
names  still  survive  in  those  of  modern  counties  or  districts.  Cere- 
digion, for  instance,  remains  as  Cardigan,  Morganwg  as  Glamorgan, 
while  the  vale  of  Edeyrnion  and  the  county  of  Merioneith  still  pre- 
serve the  memory  of  two  sons  of  the  conquering  Cunedda.  But  the 
units  of  old  W^elsh  delimitation  were  the  "  Cantrefs  "  and  the  "  Com- 
motes," which  even  to  this  day  are  often  used  for  purposes  of  descrip- 
tion, as  well  as  occasionally  for  ecclesiastical  and  political  divisions. 
Of  Cantrefs  there  would  be  something  like  three  to  the  modern 
county,  while  each  "  Cantref  "  again  consisted  of  two  "  Commotes." 


14  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

The  Southern  Kingdom,  or  Deheubarth,  was  also 

something  of  a  triangle,  but  reversely  placed  to  that 

of  Powys,  its  point  lying  on  the  English 

Deheubarth.    ,         ,  i  •       i  ,  ,  i  .  , 

border,  and  its  broad  base  stretchmg  along 
the  Irish  Sea  from  the  mouth  of  the  Dovey  to  the 
capes  of  Pembroke. 

Of  these  three  divisions,  Powys,  as  will  be  obvi- 
ous even  from  the  brief  and  crude  description  of  its 
boundaries  here  given,  had  the  greatest  difificulty  in 
holding  its  own  against  both  Saxon  and  Norman. 
South  Wales,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  thorniest 
crown,  for  it  included  to  a  greater  degree  than  the 
others  semi-independent  chieftains,  such  as  those  of 
Morganwg  and  Cardigan,  who  were  incHned  to  pay 
their  tribute  and  their  homage  only  when  their  over- 
lord, who  held  his  Court  at  Dynevor  on  the  Towy, 
was  strong  enough  to  enforce  them. 

Thus  for  nearly  seven  centuries  there  were  sepa- 
rate sources  of  strife  in  Wales,  and  three  distinct 
Warfare  in  classes  of  Warfare.  First  there  came  the 
Wales.  meritorious  defence  of  the  country  against 

Saxon,  Dane,  and  Norman,  in  which,  upon  the  whole, 
there  was  much  creditable  unanimity.  Secondly, 
during  the  lulls  from  foreign  invasion,  there  was 
almost  constant  strife  between  North  and  South, 
Powys  holding  as  it  were  the  balance  of  power 
between  them.  Lastly  there  were  the  purely  pro- 
vincial quarrels,  when  heady  chieftains  fell  out  with 
their  superiors,  a  form  of  entertainment  to  which 
South  Wales,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  was  pecul- 
iarly prone. 

But,  after  all,  it  is  not  quite  accurate  to  give  such 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  15 

emphasis  to  the  existence  and  definition  of  the  three 
Kingdoms  till  the  death  of  Roderic  the  Great  in 
877.  Several  kings  had  essayed  with  vary-  ylo^^x\z  di- 
ing  success  to  rule  all  Wales,  but  it  was  videswaies, 
Roderic  who  with  scanty  foresight  finally  ^^^' 

divided  the  country  between  his  three  sons,  laying 
particular  stress  on  the  suzerainty  of  Gwynedd.  The 
prevalent  custom  of  gavelkind  worked  admirably,  no 
doubt,  in  private  life  among  the  primitive  Welsh,  but 
when  applied  to  principalities  and  to  ambitious  and 
bloodthirsty  princelings  the  effect  was  usually  disas- 
trous. To  mitigate  the  dangers  of  his  unwise  par- 
tition, Roderic  ordained  a  scheme  which  would  have 
proved  of  undoubted  excellence  if  the  practice  had 
only  been  equal  to  the  theory.  This  was  to  the 
effect  that  if  any  two  of  the  Princes  of  Wales  quar- 
relled, all  three  were  to  meet  in  conclave  in  the  wild 
pass  of  Bwlch-y-Pawl,  through  which  the  present 
rough  road  from  Bala  to  Lake  Vyrnwy  painfully 
toils.  Here  they  were  to  settle  their  difficulties 
peacefully;  and  as  it  was  presumed  that  only  two 
would  be  parties  to  the  quarrel,  the  third  was  to  act 
as  arbiter.  For  some  centuries  after  this  we  know 
very  well  that  the  successive  rulers  of  the  three 
Kingdoms  drenched  Wales  in  blood  with  their  quar- 
rels, but  no  tradition  remains  of  a  single  conference 
at  this  wild  spot  among  the  hills,  where  the  infant 
Vyrnwy  plunges  down  through  heathery  glens  and 
woods  of  birch  and  oak  to  the  most  beautiful  arti- 
ficial lake  perhaps  in  Christendom. 

The  sins  of  omission  must  of  necessity  be  infinite 
in  dealing  with  so  vast  a  subject  in  so  compressed  a 


1 6  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

space,  and  sins  of  omission,  if  not  confessed  in  detail, 
sometimes  affect  the  accuracy  of  the  whole.  Some- 
thing, for  instance,  ought  to  be  said  of  the  pastoral 
character,  even  in  these  early  days,  of  all  Wales,  ex- 
cept perhaps  Anglesey  and  West  Carnarvon  ;  of  the 
tribal  organisation  and  the  laws  of  gavelkind  ;  of 
the  domestic  and  family  nature  of  the  Church,  whose 
minor  benefices  at  any  rate  were  largely  hereditary, 
and  whose  traditions  were  intensely  averse  to  cen- 
tralisation. Among  other  things  to  be  noted,  too,  is 
I  that  Cadvan,  who  flourished  in  the  seventh 

/         Cadvan.  .       '  .        n 

century,  is  generally  regarded  as  the  first 
genuine  King  of  Wales,  just  as  Roderic,  nearly  three 
hundred  years  later,  was  the  great  decentraliser. 

Another  important  date  is  that  of  815,  when  a 
Saxon  victory  in  Cornwall  destroyed  the  last  vestige 
815  Saxons  °^  British  independence  in  England.  For 
conquer  hithcrto  the  Britons  of  Wales  had  by  no 
ornwa  .  ^leans  regarded  themselves  as  the  mere 
defenders  of  the  soil  they  occupied.  Steeped  in  the 
prophecies  of  Merlin  and  his  contemporaries,  which 
assured  them  of  the  ultimate  reconquest  of  the 
whole  island  of  Britain,  they  still  cherished  dreams 
which  may  seem  to  us  by  the  light  of  history  vain 
enough,  but  in  the  opening  of  the  ninth  century  they 
still  fired  the  fancy  of  a  proud,  romantic,  and  war- 
like race. 

Amid  the  conflicting  evidence  of  rival  chroniclers, 
Saxon  and  Welsh,  it  is  not  often  easy  to  select 
Saxons  made  the  victors  in  the  long  series  of  bloody 
little  way.  combats  that  continued  throughout  the 
centuries  preceding  the  Norman  Conquest.     What- 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  17 

ever  victories  the  Saxons  gained,  they  were  not 
much  less  barren  than  their  defeats.  Nominal  con- 
quests were  sometimes  made  of  the  more  vulnerable 
districts,  but  they  were  not  long  maintained.  At 
the  next  upheaval  such  loose  allegiance  as  had  been 
wrung  from  the  provincial  ruler  was  repudiated 
without  a  moment's  thought,  and  often  indeed  the 
Saxons  beyond  the  border  found  themselves  in  their 
turn  fighting  for  hearth  and  home. 

In  the  ninth  century  the  Danes  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  Though  they  harried  Wales  from  time 
to  time,  both  in  the  interior  and  on  the  The  Danes, 
coast,  their  doings  in  England  were  so  in-  ^9°- 

comparably  more  serious  that  their  Welsh  exploits 
almost  escape  our  notice.  About  the  year  890, 
Danish  outposts  were  established  beneath  the  Breid- 
don  hills,  that  noble  gateway  of  mid- Wales,  through 
which  the  Severn  comes  surging  out  into  the  Shrop- 
shire plains.  Hither  four  years  later  came  that 
formidable  Danish  leader,  Hastings,  with  the  Anglo- 
Danish  forces  of  East  Anglia  and  the  north  behind 
him.  King  Alfred,  who  was  in  the  west,  hastened  to 
the  scene  and  contributed  to  this  strange  spectacle 
of  Saxons  and  Cymry  fighting  side  by  side.  A  deci- 
sive victory  at  Buttington,  near  Welshpool,  rewarded 
their  efforts,  and  though  the  struggle  between  Dane 
and  Saxon  was  of  great  service  to  Wales  by  bringing 
a  long  immunity  from  the  attacks  of  her  hereditary 
foe,  the  Danish  name  calls  for  little  more  notice  in 
Welsh  annals. 

Seeing  that  vague  dreams  of  reconquest  still  lin- 
gered  among  the  Welsh,    England's   difficulty,  to 


1 8  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

apply  a  familiar  modern  aphorism,  should  have  been 
Cambria's  opportunity.  But  readily  as  the  three 
Welsh  Princes,  when  their  common  country  was  in 
danger,  were  accustomed  to  combine,  and  efficiently 
as  they  raided  in  independent  fashion  across  the 
English  border,  cohesion  for  a  serious  aggressive 
movement  was  almost  hopeless.  The  moment  that 
they  were  safe,  they  turned  their  arms  against  each 
other.  The  whole  history  of  Wales,  from  the  days 
of  Roderic  to  those  of  Edward,  with  a  few  brief 
intervals,  is  one  long  tale  of  bloody  strife. 

Nor  were  the  Princes  of  Gwynedd,  Powys,  and 
Deheubarth  always  content  to  fight  their  quarrels 
out  alone.  As  time  went  on  they  grew  more  accus- 
tomed to  their  Saxon  neighbours,  even  if  they  did 
not  love  them  more.  Occasional  amenities  became 
possible.  Intermarriages  between  the  two  aristocra- 
cies were  not  unknown,  and  when  they  had  progressed 
No  Saxon  thus  far  a  Prince  of  Powys  would  scarcely 
settlement,  have  been  human  if  he  had  not  occasion- 
ally been  tempted  to  call  in  Saxon  aid  against  his 
powerful  rivals  of  Gwynedd  or  Deheubarth.  But  in 
spite  of  this  dangerous  game,  played  often  enough 
and  in  later  Norman  days  so  fatal,  the  soil  of  Wales, 
so  far  as  any  serious  occupation  or  dominion  is 
implied,  remained  inviolate  throughout  the  whole 
Saxon  period. 

One  very  narrow  escape  from  a  perman- 

Strathclyde  ,      ,       "^  ,.0  r        -.  •    1         1 

Britons  oc-  cnt  lodgment  of  Saxons,  of  which  the 
cupy  the  Vale  vv'elsh  chroniclc  tells  us,  should  not  per- 

ofClwyd.  '  ,    .         t 

naps  be  passed  over.     It  occurred  m  the 
days  when  Anarawd,  one  of  the  sons  of   Roderic, 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  19 

was  ruling  over  North  Wales,  at  the  close  of  the 
ninth  century.  More  than  a  hundred  years  before, 
the  Mercians,  under  Offa,  had  driven  the  Welsh 
finally  from  Shropshire  and  pressed  them  back  be- 
hind the  famous  Dyke,  whose  clearly  marked  course 
still  preserves  the  name  of  their  warlike  monarch. 
The  great  Saxon  victory  on  Rhuddlan  March,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Clwyd,  had  occurred  soon  after- 
wards, and  the  wail  of  the  defeated  is  still  sounded 
in  one  of  the  most  notable  of  Welsh  airs.  But 
Offa's  Dyke  had  been  since  then  considerably  over- 
leaped, and  the  slaughter  of  Rhuddlan  had  been 
long  avenged.  When  the  descendants  of  these  same 
Mercians  poured  once  more  into  the  pleasant  country 
that  lies  upon  the  north  shore  between  Chester  and 
the  Conway,  the  invaders  of  the  "  Perfeddwlad,"  as 
this  region  was  then  called  (a  term  I  shall  use  for 
convenience  throughout  this  chapter),  proved  too 
powerful  for  Anarawd.  He  was  driven  back  into 
Snowdonia  and  Anglesey,  and  the  Saxons  settled 
down  in  the  Vale  of  Clwyd  and  upon  either  side  of 
it,  with  a  deliberation  that,  but  for  an  opportune  acci- 
dent, would  have  probably  converted  a  large  slice  of 
North  Wales  into  a  piece  of  England  for  all  time. 
But  just  as  the  Strathclyde  Britons  in  the  days  of 
Cunedda  had  brought  to  Wales  in  the  time  of  her 
need  after  the  Roman  departure  a  valuable 

,  ...  ,  ...  Saxon  settle- 

and  warlike  element,  so  their  descendants,  ment  prevent- 
four  centuries  later,  came  just  in  time  to  f^  by  strath- 

1  ,        ^    ,    .        , .        .  ,  Clyde  Britons. 

save  what  are  now  the  Celtic  districts  of 

Flint  and  northern  Denbigh  from  becoming  Saxon. 

These  people,  hard   pressed   in   north   Lancashire, 


20  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

Cumberland,  and  even  beyond,  by  Danes  and  Sax- 
ons, decided  to  seek  a  new  home,  and  their  thoughts 
naturally  turned  to  Wales.  They  made  overtures 
to  Anarawd,  begging  that  he  would  grant  them  of 
his  abundance  sufficient  territory  for  their  needs. 
But  Anarawd's  kingdom  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been 
sadly  circumscribed,  and  his  homeless  subjects  from 
the  east  of  the  Conway  were  already  on  his  hands. 
A  bright  thought  struck  him,  and  he  informed  his 
Strathclyde  kinsmen  that  if  they  could  reconquer 
the  Perfeddwlad  they  were  welcome  to  it.  Ne- 
cessity, perhaps,  nerved  the  arms  of  the  wanderers, 
and  the  Saxons,  who,  as  Dr.  Powell  quaintly  puts 
it,  *'  were  not  yet  warm  in  their  seats,"  were  driven 
Victory  of  hcadlong  out  of  Wales.  The  Mercians, 
Anarawd,  878.  howcvcr,  wcre  not  the  kind  of  men  to  sit 
quietly  down  after  such  an  ignominious  expulsion  ; 
they  made  vigorous  preparations  for  taking  their 
revenge,  and  retrieving  their  fortunes  and  their 
honour.  The  Strathclyde  Britons  sorely  doubted 
their  powers  of  resistance  to  the  great  force  which 
now  threatened  them,  so,  carrying  all  their  cattle  and 
effects  back  again  across  the  Conway,  they  begged 
Anarawd  in  his  own  interest  as  well  as  in  theirs  to 
support  them.  The  Prince  of  Gwynedd  rose  nobly 
to  the  occasion  and,  joining  all  his  forces  to  those 
of  his  immigrant  kinsmen,  they  met  the  returning 
Saxon  invaders  near  Conway,  and  in  a  pitched 
battle  drove  them  back  to  the  Dee  with  prodig- 
ious slaughter,  never  to  return.  So  the  country  be- 
tween the  two  rivers  was  preserved  to  the  Cymric 
race  and  saved  from  becoming,  as  for  the  moment 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  2 1 

looked  extremely  probable,  another  Cheshire  or 
Shropshire. 

Anarawd,  however,  could  not  rest  content  with 
his  triumph  over  the  Saxons.  As  an  illustration  of 
the  thirst  for  war  that  seems  to  have  been  chronic 
with  most  of  the  Welsh  Princes,  it  may  be  noted 
that,  with  the  Saxons  vowing  vengeance  on  his 
borders,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  march  into  South 
Wales  and  make  an  unprovoked  attack  upon  its 
Prince,  his  own  brother. 

But  with  the  death  of  Anarawd  and  his  brothers, 
various  contingencies,  which  need  not  detain  us  here, 
made  Howel  Dda,  or  Howel  the  Good,  Howeioda, 
both  the  heir  and  the  acceptable  ruler  of  Q^o. 

all  three  provinces.  His  reign  was  unique  in  Welsh 
annals,  for  it  was  not  only  long,  but  almost  peaceful. 
This  excellent  Prince  turned  his  brilliant  talents  and 
force  of  character  almost  entirely  to  the  civil  and 
moral  elevation  of  his  people.  He  drew  up  his 
famous  code  of  laws,  which,  as  is  sometimes  asserted, 
unconsciously  influence  the  legal  instincts  of  remoter 
Wales  even  to  this  day.  In  the  preparation  of  this 
great  work  he  summoned  his  bishops  and  nobility 
and  wise  men  to  meet  him  at  Ty  Gwyn  on  the 
Towy,  for  it  should  be  noted  that  this  ruler  of  a 
temporarily  united  Wales  was  in  the  first  instance 
Prince  of  Deheubarth. 

Here  this  select  assembly  spent  the  whole  of  Lent, 
fasting  and  praying  for  the  Divine  aid  in    The  laws  of 
their  approaching  task.  Howel  then  picked     HoweiDda 
out   from  among  them  the  twelve  most 
capable   persons,  with   the  Chancellor   of   LlandafT 


22  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

at  their  head,  and  proceeded  to  examine  in  ex- 
haustive fashion  all  the  laws  of  the  Cymry.  Of 
these  they  eliminated  the  bad,  retained  the  good, 
and  amended  others  to  suit  present  requirements. 
This  new  code  was  then  ratified  by  the  entire  as- 
sembly before  it  dispersed.  Three  copies  were  made, 
and  it  is  significant  of  the  change  already  creeping 
over  the  Welsh  Church,  that  Howel  and  his  four 
bishops  are  said  to  have  journeyed  to  Rome  and  sub- 
mitted one  of  them  to  the  Pope  for  his  approval. 
The  Laws  of  Howel  Dda  may  be  read  to-day  by  any- 
one with  access  to  a  reference  library.  The  rights 
of  every  class  of  person  are  herein  clearly  set  forth, 
and  the  precise  value  of  each  man's  life  according  to 
his  rank,  and  of  every  animal's  hide  and  carcase  ac- 
curately defined.  The  tribal  sanctity  of  land,  too,  is 
well  illustrated  by  a  law  forbidding  the  owner  of 
an  estate  to  mortgage  it  to  anyone  but  a  kinsman. 
Books,  harps,  swords,  and  implements  of  livelihood 
were  exempted  from  distraint,  while  among  live  stock 
horses  were  placed  in  the  same  category,  as  being 
necessary  for  defence.  Suits  in  connection  with  land 
could  not  be  heard  between  February  and  May,  or  be- 
tween May  and  August,  since  these  were  the  periods 
of  seed-time  and  harvest,  while  all  cases  touching  in- 
heritance were  to  be  heard  by  the  King  himself.  The 
latter  is  pictured  to  us  as  sitting  in  his  judicial  chair 
above  the  rest  of  the  Court,  with  an  Elder  upon  either 
hand  and  the  freeholders  ranged  upon  his  right  and 
left.  Immediately  below  the  King  sat  the  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  the  Province,  with  a  priest  upon  one  side  of 
him  and  the  Judge  of  the  Commote  upon  the  other. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  23 

After  hearing  witnesses  and  taking  depositions,  the 
two  judges  and  the  priest  retired  to  consider  the 
verdict.  This  done,  the  King  took  counsel  with 
them,  and,  if  he  agreed,  delivered  judgment  himself. 
If  the  case  was  too  involved,  however,  for  a  satisfac- 
tory decision,  the  matter  was  settled  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  single  combat.  A  fixed  price,  as  I  have 
remarked,  was  set  upon  almost  everything,  both  liv- 
ing and  inanimate.  One  is  surprised,  for  instance,  to 
find  an  apple  tree  worth  60^.,  and  a  tree  yajueofarti- 
planted  for  shelter  worth  24^.,  while  a  cies  fixed  by 
coracle  is  only  worth  8^.  A  salmon  net  h°^^i^^«- 
is  appraised  at  just  double  the  last  amount,  while  a 
spade,  again,  is  rated  at  a  penny  only.  Though  the 
skin  of  an  ox  or  hart  is  fixed  at  %d.  the  near  extinc- 
tion of  the  beaver  is  significantly  shewn  by  its  value 
of  120^.  Dogs,  too,  vary  most  curiously  on  the  list. 
A  common  cur  is  held  at  4<^.,  a  shepherd  dog  at  6od., 
and  the  best  sporting  dogs  at  four  times  the  latter 
sum.  There  is  special  mention,  too,  of  chargers, 
hunters,  roadsters,  pack-horses,  and  draught-horses 
for  carts  and  harrows.  Horses  are  not  to  be  broken 
till  their  third  year;  while  three  rides  through  a 
crowd  is  the  legal  test  of  "  warranted  broken."  Cows 
and  mares,  too,  are  prohibited  from  ploughing.  We 
learn  also  in  this  singular  price-list  the  current  value, 
among  other  things,  of  a  battle-axe,  a  bow  with 
twelve  arrows,  a  white-hilted  sword,  a  shield  en- 
amelled with  blue  and  gold ;  of  plaids,  too,  striped 
and  chequered  stuffs,  mantles  trimmed  with  fur, 
robes,  coats,  hose,  buskins,  shoes,  gloves,  caps,  bon- 
nets, girdles,  and  buckles. 


24  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

There  are  stringent  laws  against  cruelty  to  ani- 
mals and  in  favour  of  hospitality.  Game  laws  ex- 
isted of  the  strictest  kind,  classifying  every  animal 
of  the  chase  and  dealing  with  the  management  of 
hounds,  and  the  etiquette  of  hunting.  For  their 
ardour  in  these  pursuits,  the  Welsh  were  distin- 
guished among  nations,  not  being  surpassed  even 
by  the  Normans  themselves. 

The  customs  obtaining  in  the  royal  household  are 
tabulated  in  Howel  Dda's  code  with  extraordinary 
minuteness,  and  the  duties  of  every  official,  from 
highest  to  lowest,  strictly  defined  ;  from  the  Chaplain, 
Steward,  Judge,  and  Master  of  the  Horse  down  to 
the  porter  and  birdkeeper.  The  perquisites,  it  may 
be  noted,  of  the  Master  of  the  Horse  are  all  colts 
under  two  years  old,  taken  in  war,  and  all  gold  and 
silver  spurs  thus  acquired ;  those  of  the  porter, 
every  billet  of  wood  he  could  snatch  from  a  passing 
load,  with  one  hand,  as  he  held  the  gate  with  the 
other,  and  any  swine  out  of  a  herd  that  he  could  lift 
breast  high  by  its  bristles  only  ! 

Of  the  bards  there  is  so  much  to  be  said  elsewhere 
that  we  need  only  remark  here  that  the  duties  of  the 
Bardd  Teulu,  or  Poet  Laureate,  were  to  follow  the 
army  and  sing  the  "  Unbennaeth  Prydain  "  or  "  Mon- 
archy of  Britain  "  before,  and  if  triumphant  after, 
the  battle;  to  perform  at  all  times  before  the  Court, 
and  also  privately  to  the  Queen,  only  in  so  low  a 
tone  as  not  to  disturb  the  King  and  his  courtiers. 
This  illustrious  functionary  was  valued  at  126  cows. 

A  remarkable  official  was  the  "  Crier  of  Silence," 
who  beat  a  particular  pillar  in  the  great  hall  with  a 


1400 J  Introductory  Sketch  25 

rod  when  the  noise  became  excessive,  and  had  for 
his  perquisites  the  fines  that  were  exacted  for  any 
such  undue  boisterousness.  Strangest  by  far  of  all 
was  the  King's  **  footholder,"  whose  duty  it  was  to 
sit  under  the  table  at  meals  and  nurse  his  Majesty's 
foot,  and  to  "■  scratch  it  when  required." 

Nor  can  we  forget  the  "  Pencerdd,"  the  Chief  of 
Song,  who  was  of  popular  election  and  presided 
at  the  Bardic  Gorsedd  held  every  third  year,  and 
held  only  at  Aberffraw  in  Anglesey,  the  royal  resi- 
dence of  Gwynedd  ;  for  the  Eisteddfodau  were  held 
by  all  the  Welsh  Princes  apparently  at  will.  The 
Pencerdd  was  expected  to  know  by  heart  the  pro- 
phetic song  of  Taliesin.  He  lodged  in  the  quarters 
of  the  heir  apparent,  and  was  presented  by  the  King 
with  a  harp  and  key. 

Howel  the  Good  died  about  950.  With  the  divi- 
sions and  disputes  of  his  sons  and  nephews  Wales 
quickly  lost  its  unanimity,  and  once  more  Renewed 
the  flame  of  war  was  lit  from  one  end  of  conflicts,  950. 
the  country  to  the  other  by  these  foolish  broilers,  in 
attempts  to  despoil  each  other  of  their  respective 
portions.  The  question  was  at  length  settled  for  a 
while  by  a  great  battle  at  Llanrwst,  where  the  men 
of  North  Wales  utterly  discomfited  those  of  the 
South,  pursuing  them  with  fire  and  sword  far  beyond 
the  northern  boundaries  of  Deheubarth. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  tenth  century 
we  begin  to  get  glimpses  of  those  ameni-  terToTrsf  bel 
ties  between  Cymry  and  Saxon,  which  a  tween  weish 

...  .  .  and  Saxon. 

now  common  religion,  a  common  foe  in 

the  Danes,  and  considerable  private  intercourse,  had 


26  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

rendered  inevitable.  We  find  King  Eadgar  himself, 
for  instance,  at  Bangor,  helping  lago  ap  Idwal,  Prince 
of  Gwynedd,  against  his  nephew  Howel  ap  levan. 
Everything,  however,  being  amicably  arranged,  the 
Saxon  King  actually  remains  in  friendly  fashion  at 
Bangor,  and  bestows  gifts  and  endowments  upon  its 
see.  Finally  the  two  recent  disputants  return  with 
Eadgar  to  Chester,  and  take  an  oar  in  that  celebrated 
crew  of  kinglets  which  rowed  the  Saxon 
rowed  by  monarch  upon  the  Dee.  Gwaithvoed, 
Welsh  Princes  prince  of  Powys,who  was  invited  to  assist 

on  the  Dee,         .  -  .       -       . 

m  this  somewhat  mglonous  procession, 
seems  to  have  been  the  only  one  of  the  Welsh 
Reguli  who  refused  the  honour.  "  Tell  the  King," 
said  Gwaithvoed,  **  I  cannot  row  a  barge,  and  if  I 
could,  I  would  not  do  so,  except  to  save  a  life, 
whether  king's  or  vassal's."  On  being  pressed  by 
a  second  messenger  from  Eadgar,  his  brief  answer 
was :  *'  Say  to  the  King,  *  Fear  him  who  fears  not 
death.'  " 

It  is  not  easy  to  define  the  precise  attitude  of 
the  Welsh  Princes  towards  the  King  of  England  as  the 
Saxon  period  drew  towards  its  close.  Though  the 
ancient  Britons  had  become  crystallised  into  Welsh- 
men, the  old  tradition  of  the  island  as  a  whole  with 
an  "  Emperor  "  in  London,  and  a  general  scheme  of 
defence  against  foreign  foes,  was  not  yet  dead.  The 
Saxons,  though  little  loved,  had  become  an  accepted 
fact,  and  there  seems  to  have  been  no  particular  re- 
luctance among  the  Welsh  princes  to  pay  lip  homage, 
when  relationships  were  not  too  strained,  to  the 
"  King  in  London,"  and  tribute,  too,  as  representing 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  27 

the  ancient  contribution  to  "  the  defence  of  the 
island." 

For  the  last  hundred  years  prior  to  the  Nor- 
man conquest,  one  follows  the  bloody  path  of 
Welsh  history  in  vain  efforts  to  find  some  Lieweiyn  i., 
breathing   space,    wherein    rulers    turned  *°°°- 

their  attention  to  something  besides  the  lust  of 
power  and  the  thirst  for  glory.  It  was  about  the 
year  1000  when  the  first  of  the  three  Llewelyns  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  of  North  Wales.  Under  a 
King  whose  title  was  absolutely  indisputable,  and 
who  possessed  some  force  of  character,  it  seemed  as 
if  the  sword  was  now  for  a  season,  at  any  rate,  to  re- 
main undrawn.  But  it  was  not  to  be ;  for  in  no  long 
time  the  throne  of  South  Wales  fell  vacant,  and 
there  was,  unhappily,  no  direct  heir.  So  the  nobles 
of  the  Province,  fearing,  and  with  some  reason,  that 
Llewelyn  would  seize  the  opportunity  to  attach  the 
Southern  Kingdom  to  his  other  dominions,  brought 
forward  a  creature  of  their  own,  a  low-born  advent- 
urer, who  claimed  to  be  of  the  royal  lineage.  This 
precipitated  the  catastrophe  which  it  was  designed 
to  prevent,  and  Llewelyn  fell  upon  Deheubarth  with 
the  whole  force  of  Gwynedd.  The  fight  lasted 
through  a  whole  day,  and  the  slaughter  was  immense, 
but  the  Northerners  again  prevailed. 

But  there  were  also  years  of  peace  under  Llewelyn 
ap  Seisyllt,  and  of  conspicuous  prosperity,  so  the 
chronicler  tells  us,  in  which  **  the  earth  brought  forth 
double,  the  people  prospered  in  all  their  affairs,  and 
multiplied  wonderfully.  The  cattle  increased  in 
great  numbers,  so  that  there  was  not  a  poor  man  in 


28  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

Wales  from  the  south  to  the  north  sea,  but  every 
man  had  plenty,  every  house  a  dweller,  every  town 
inhabited."  Llewelyn  fell  ultimately  before  Car- 
marthen, and  his  throne  was  seized  by  lago  ap 
Idwal,  a  collateral  relative.  He  in  turn  was  quickly 
Griffith  ap  Overthrown  and  slain  by  Llewelyn's  war- 
Lieweiyn.  iji^g  gou  Griffith,  who  cujoycd  what  from 
a  purely  military  point  of  view  might  be  called  a 
successful  reign. 

The  Danes  at  this  time  began  again  to  make  at- 
tacks on  Wales,  but  were  defeated  in  Anglesey,  and 
again  in  the  Severn  valley. 

Flushed  with  victory,  and  without  a  particle  of 
excuse,  Griffith  now  turned  upon  South  Wales,  rav- 
aged it  with  fire  and  sword,  and  drove  out 

Griffith  ap  ^ 

Llewelyn  at-  its  ncw  PHuce,  Howcl  ap  Edwy.  Howel, 
tacks  South    however,    came    back   with   an    army   of 

Wales.  •' 

Danes  and  Saxons,  so  had  times  changed 
in  Wales,  but  only  to  meet  with  disaster  and  defeat 
at  the  hands  of  the  vigorous  Griffith.  Yet  again  the 
indomitable  Howel  returned  with  a  fresh  army  to 
try  his  luck,  and  so  certain  was  he  this  time  of  vic- 
tory that  he  brought  his  wife  to  witness  it.  But 
again  disaster  overtook  him,  and  his  wife,  instead 
of  sharing  his  triumph,  was  carried  off  to  share  his 
conqueror's  bed. 

Thus  rolls  on  the  tumult  and  the  turmoil  of  the 
old  Welsh  story.  The  wonder  is  when  and  how  the 
laws  of  the  wise  and  peaceful  Howel  Dda  found 
scope  for  application,  and  we  can  only  suppose  that 
the  partial  nature  of  these  fierce  struggles  atoned  in 
some  measure  for  their  continuity.     Yet  through  all 


1400]  Introdtutory  Sketch  29 

this  devastation  Church  property,  of  which  there  was 
now  a  considerable  amount  and  of  a  tangible  kind, 
seems  to  have  been  well  respected.  The  Danes 
alone  were  regardless  of  shrines  and  monasteries ; 
and  we  hear  of  them  at  St.  David's  and  Llanbadarn 
and  other  sacred  spots  along  the  sea-coast  doing  wild 
work. 

The  twenty  years  preceding  the  battle  of  Hastings 
were  busy  years  in  Wales,  and  the  foremost  name  of 
that  epoch  in  England  came  to  be  perhaps 
more  dreaded  among  the  native  Welsh 
than  that  of  any  other  Saxon  since  the  days  of  Offa. 
But  Harold,  Earl  of  the  West  Saxons  and  com- 
mander of  the  English  armies,  got  much  Harold  and 
deeper  into  Wales  than  Offa  had  ever  sue-  Griffith. 
ceeded  in  doing,  and  indeed  came  much  nearer 
than  any  of  his  predecessors  to  a  conquest  of  the 
country.  Griffith  ap  Llewelyn,  Prince  of  Gwynedd 
by  right,  and  of  all  Wales  by  force,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  no  mean  soldier.  He  was  Harold's  adversary, 
and  the  last  Welsh  Prince  to  face  the  Saxon  power. 
This,  the  final  quarrel  of  five  centuries  of  strife,  was, 
for  a  wonder,  not  of  Griffith's  seeking. 

We  have  seen  how  greatly  modified  the  cleavage 
between  the  two  peoples  had  by  now  become.  Inter- 
marriages had  taken  place  in  the  higher  ranks,  alli- 
ances had  been  formed,  and  Saxon  influences  in 
matters  such  as  land  tenure  and  Church  government 
had  been  sensibly  felt  beyond  the  Severn  and  the 
Dee.  So  now,  while  the  shadow  of  the  Norman  in- 
vasion was  hanging  over  unconscious  England,  Algar, 
Earl  of  Chester,  falling  out  with  King  Edward,  did 


30  Owen  Glyndwr  woo- 

nothing  particularly  unusual  when  he  fled  to  the 
warlike  son  of  the  first  Llewelyn,  and  tried  to  embroil 
him  in  his  quarrel.  Griffith  was  peacefully  hunting 
at  his  second  residence  at  Aber  near  Bangor,  and 
had  indeed  made  good  use  of  a  few  years  of  peace, 
but  he  was  not  the  man  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  any 
prospect  of  a  fight.  The  upshot  was  a  very  serious 
war,  in  which  Griffith  and  his  ally  were  for  a  long 
time  singularly  successful.  They  defeated  Edwin  of 
Mercia  in  a  great  battle  near  Welshpool ;  they  after- 
wards took  Hereford,  won  a  victory  at  Leominster, 
and  penetrated  as  far  as  Wiltshire. 

A  brief  truce  ensued  with  Harold,  who  had 
been  opposing  them,  and  then  the  struggle  began 
Harold  in  afrcsh.  The  tables  were  now  completely 
Wales.  turned.      Harold's    memorable    invasion 

of  Wales  took  place,  in  which  he  was  assisted  to 
success  by  the  many  enemies  Griffith  had  made  in 
his  high-handed  annexation  of  Deheubarth.  The 
Death  of  Grif- ^^Ish  PHnce,  after  a  stirring  reign  of 
fith,  1061.  thirty-four  years,  perished  during  this 
campaign  of  1061  at  the  hand  of  a  hired  assassin. 
His  head,  like  that  of  many  another  Welsh  leader, 
was  sent  across  the  border  in  a  basket,  and  received 
at  Gloucester  by  Harold  with  much  demonstrative 
satisfaction.  The  latter,  in  the  meantime,  had 
marched  to  the  Conway,  and  afterwards  through 
South  Wales.  He  had  been  victorious  everywhere ; 
and  now  nominated  fresh  rulers  to  the  vacant 
thrones  of  Gwynedd  and  Deheubarth,  under  prom- 
ise of  vassalage  to  the  English  Crown. 

The  tenure  of  the  three  Welsh  Princes  was  always 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  31 

complicated  and,  indeed,  liable  to  fluctuation  with 
the  balance  of  power,  both  in  Wales  and  across  the 
border.  In  theory,  Powys  and  South  Wales  owed 
lip  homage  and  a  nominal  tribute  to  the  Prince  of 
Gwynedd  as  **  Pendragon."  The  latter,  on  behalf  of 
Wales,  owed  a  similar  service  to  the  King  of  England 
and,  as  I  have  mentioned  before,  was  not  inclined 
to  dispute  it  so  long  as  his  independence  was  re- 
spected. Harold's  so-called  conquest  only  altered 
matters  to  the  extent  of  making  the  three  Welsh 
provinces  theoretically  equal  and  individually  vas- 
sals of  the  English  Crown.  This  paper  arrangement 
would  have  probably  remained  a  dead  letter  or  would 
have  been  maintained  just  so  long  as  there  was  an 
arm  strong  enough  to  maintain  it.  But  a  people 
were  coming  to  eliminate  the  Saxon  as  an  aggressive 
power,  and  to  take  his  place, — a  people  who  would 
not  be  satisfied  with  lip  homage  and  occasional 
tribute. 

The  great  struggle  in  England  between  Norman 
and  Saxon  seemed  by  the  mere  force  of  contagion 
to  set  the  Welsh  Princes  once  more  by  1066.  weish 
the  ears.  Some  of  them,  however,  in  ac- *n«^  Normans, 
cordance  with  their  generous  tradition  of  loyalty 
to  the  soil  of  the  Britain  they  had  lost,  joined 
the  West  Saxons  in  their  resistance  to  this  new  and 
formidable  foe.  Others  essayed  to  make  use  in 
their  domestic  quarrels  of  the  crafty  Norman,  who 
was  only  too  glad  to  get  a  finger  so  cheaply  into  the 
Welsh  pie. 

The  followers  of  William  of  Normandy,  indeed, 
lost  no  time  in  turning  their  attention  to  Wales. 


32  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

Within  ten  years  of  the  battle  of  Hastings, — almost 
immediately,  that  is  to  say,  after  the  completion  of 
the  conquest  of  England, —  they  began  their  ma- 
rauding expeditions  across  the  border,  and  were  not 
unnaturally  surprised  at  finding  themselves  con- 
fronted by  a  people  so  entirely  different  from  those 
they  had  just  subdued.  But  these  initial  successes 
taught  the  Welsh  nothing,  and  they  still  continued 
their  fatal  internecine  strife. 

The  first  serious  lodgments  of  the  Normans  were 
made  at  Montgomery,  where  a  baron  of  that  name 
The  Normans  built  the  castlc,  whose  fragments  still  look 
in  Wales.  down  from  their  rocky  throne  upon  the 
windings  of  the  upper  Severn.  Rhuddlan,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Clwyd,  the  site  of  an  even  then  an- 
cient fortress,  was  next  occupied  and  strengthened. 
Flushed  with  their  easy  conquest  of  England,  the 
Normans  had  already  begun  to  regard  Wales  as  if  it 
also  belonged  to  them ;  and  still  the  quarrelsome 
Welsh  chieftains  continued  to  engage  these  formid- 
able new-comers  in  their  disputes.  At  Chester, 
Hugh  Lupus,  its  Earl  of  famous  memory,  and  the 
nephew  of  the  Conqueror,  held  in  secure  confinement 
the  person  of  the  Prince  of  Gwynedd  whom  he  had 
seized  by  treachery.  He  then  proceeded  to  farm 
out  the  realm  of  the  captive  prince,  but  as  he  only 
received  £\o  as  rental  the  sum  is  more  eloquent  than 
any  words  would  be  to  express  the  nature  of  the 
hold  he  had  won  over  it.  It  is  more  than  likely  the 
contractors  had  a  bad  bargain  even  at  that  figure. 

In  the  conspiracy  of  1075,  when  William  was  on 
the  continent,  many  of  the  Welsh  nobles  joined,  and 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  33 

had  consequently  their  share  of  the  hanging  and 
mutilating  that  followed  its  discovery.  Lupus,  how- 
ever, marched  an  army  through  the  North 

'  .  Lupus,  Earl 

and  built  or  rebuilt  castles  at  Bangor,  of  Chester,  in- 
Carnarvon,  and  Anglesey.     He  was  close-   ^^d"  North 

'  ^  ^  Wales,  1075. 

ly  followed  by  the  Conqueror  himself,  who 
with  a  large  force  proceeded  with  little  apparent 
opposition  through  the  turbulent  South,  received 
the  homage  of  its  king,  Rhys  ap  Tudor,  and  its  petty 
Princes,  and  then  repaired  with  great  pomp  to  the 
cathedral  of  St.  David's,  at  whose  altar  he  offered 
costly  gifts.  This  kind  of  triumphal  progress,  as  the 
Saxons  well  knew,  though  the  Normans  had  yet  to 
learn  the  fact,  did  not  mean  the  conquest  of  Wales. 
King  William  in  this  single  campaign  seems  to  have 
imbibed  some  respect  for  Welshmen,  for  he  spoke  of 
them  on  his  death-bed  as  a  people  with  whom  he  had 
''held  perilous  conflicts." 

Infinitely  more  dangerous  to  Welsh  liberty  was 
the  experiment  next  tried  by  a  native  Prince  of  ac- 
quiring Norman  aid  at  the  expense  of  territory. 
The  story  of  the  conquest  and  settlement  of  Gla- 
morgan is  such  a  luminous  and  significant  incident 
in  Welsh  history,  and  was  of  such  great  future  im- 
portance, that  it  must  be  briefly  related. 

The  present  county  of  Glamorgan  was  represented, 
roughly  speaking,  in  ancient  Wales  by  the  subking- 
dom,  or,  to  use  a  more  appropriate  term, 
the   lordship   of   Morganwg.     It  had  ac-      settlement 
quired    its   name    in    the    ninth    century  »" 

11  •    1     1         1         /•  •  1  Glamorgan. 

through  the  martial  deeds  of  its  then  pro- 
prietor, "  Morgan  Fawr,"  or  "  Morgan  the  Great." 
3 


34  Owen  Glyndwr  t400- 

Morganwg,  though  part  of  Deheubarth,  was  at  times 
strong  enough  to  claim  something  like  independence, 
and  indeed  the  uncertain  relationships  of  the  smaller 
chieftains  of  South  Wales  to  their  overlord  at  Dj^ne- 
vor  may  well  be  the  despair  of  any  one  attempting 
to  combine  tolerable  accuracy  with  unavoidable 
brevity.  But  these  remarks  are  only  relevant  for 
the  purpose  of  emphasising  the  comparative  import- 
ance at  all  times  in  Wales  of  the  country  we  call 
Glamorgan  ;  and  this  was  due  not  only  to  its  size 
and  to  its  seacoast,  but  to  its  comparative  smooth- 
ness and  fertility.  In  the  year  1091,  in 
the  reign  of  William  Rufus,  one  lestyn,  a 
descendant  of  Morgan  the  Great,  was  ruling  over 
Glamorgan,  and  as  he  was  upon  anything  but  friend- 
ly terms  with  his  feudal  superior,  Rhys  ap  Tudor, 
Prince  of  South  Wales,  he  bethought  him  of  calHng 
in  alien  aid,  a  habit  then  growing  lamentably  com- 
mon among  Welsh  chieftains. 

The  Saxons  had  ceased  to  exist  as  a  military 
power,  and  the  Normans  stood  in  their  shoes.  lestyn 
lestyn  and  kucw  uothiug  of  Normaus,  but  he  had  a 
Einion.  friend  named  Einion  who  was  reputed  to 

have  had  much  experience  with  them.  To  Einion, 
then,  he  repaired  and  promised  him  his  daughter's 
hand,  which  presumably  carried  with  it  some- 
thing substantial,  if  he  would  bring  a  band  of  Nor- 
mans to  his  assistance  in  his  dispute  with  Rhys. 
Einion  consented  to  be  his  intermediary  and  without 
much  difficulty  secured  the  services  of  Robert  Fitz- 
hamon  and  twelve  knightly  adventurers  who  served 
under  him.     The  Normans  in  due  course  arrived  and 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  35 

rendered  lestyn  invaluable  assistance  in  resisting  his 
lawful  sovereign.  They  then,  so  runs  the  chronicle, 
having  received  their  pay,  quite  contrary 
to  Norman  custom  peacefully  re-embarked 
at  Cardiff  and  weighed  anchor  for  home.  But  lestyn, 
before  they  had  well  cleared  the  harbour,  was  inju- 
dicious enough  to  repudiate  the  promise  of  his 
daughter  to  Einion,  whereupon  the  exasperated 
princeling  put  to  sea,  interviewed  Fitzhamon,  and 
persuaded  him  to  return  with  his  friends  and  his 
forces  and  eject  the  faithless  lestyn  from  his  rich 
territory.  One  may  well  believe  it  did  not  take 
much  to  win  over  the  Normans  to  so  attractive  and 
congenial  an  undertaking.  At  any  rate  they  reversed 
their  course  with  much  alacrity,  returned  to  Cardiff, 
ejected  lestyn,  and  after  some  fighting,  assisted  by 
Einion's  people,  divided  the  province  among  them- 
selves, each  building  one  or  more  great  castles,  whose 
ruins  are  notable  features  in  Glamorganshire  scenery 
to-day.  The  blood  of  Fitzhamon's  knightly  followers 
courses  in  the  veins  of  many  an  ancient  family  of 
South  Wales,  and  one  of  them  at  least  is  still  directly 
represented  in  name  as  well  as  lineage.  This  con- 
quest must  be  placed  among  the  earliest  in  Wales, 
and  it  became  the  type  of  many  future  Norman  set- 
tlements, though  it  was  the  outcome  of  an  incident, 
while  the  others  were  for  the  most  part  deliberately 
planned.  The  reign  of  Rufus  was  memorable  for 
these  filibustering  expeditions.  They  were  executed 
under  the  sanction  of  the  King,  who  found  in  them  a 
cheap  method  of  granting  favours  to  his  barons,  par- 
ticularly those  who  had  perhaps  not  come  out  so 


36  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

well  as  they  could  have  wished  in  the  partition  of 
England.  They  might,  in  short,  take  of  Wales  as 
William  Hiuch  as  they  could  keep,  subject  only  to 
Rufus  holding  what  they  acquired  as  feudatories 

of  the  King.  There  will  be  more  to  say 
about  these  Marcher  barons  later  on.  In  the  mean- 
time, Brecheiniog,  or  Brecon,  had  been  also  conquered 
by  another  Norman,  Bernard  de  Newmarch,  with  a 
similar  band  of  followers,  and  secured  by  a  similar 
system  of  castle  building.  Montgomery  and  other 
points  in  North  and  South  Wales  had  been  occupied, 
but  they  were  for  the  most  part  purely  military  out- 
posts. The  occupation  of  Brecon  and  Glamorgan  by 
a  Norman  aristocracy  is  a  salient  and  permanent  fac- 
tor in  Welsh  history.  This  does  not,  however,  imply 
that  such  filibustering  barons  were  allowed  to  settle 
quietly  down  in  their  seats.  Before  the  end  of  the 
reign,  indeed,  they  were  driven  out,  and  William 
Rufus  himself,  who  marched  through  Wales  more  or 
less  upon  their  behalf,  had,  after  all,  to  retire  discom- 
fited :  but  they  were  soon  back  again.  It  was  not 
wholly  by  brute  force  that  they  held  their  own. 
Life  would  hardly  have  been  worth  living  upon  such 
terms,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  far  as  one  can  read 
between  the  lines  of  these  old  chronicles,  there  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  at  first  the  same  antipathy 
between  Norman  and  Welshman  as  had  formerly  ex- 
isted between  Saxon  and  Welshman.  Marriages  car- 
Marria  es  ^Y^^g  Welsh  property  with  them  seem  to 
with  have  been  readily  arranged.  A  singular  and 

ormans.       romautic  instance  of  this  was  in  the  mat- 
ter of   Coity  Castle,  whose    ruined   walls   still  hold 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  37 

together  near  Bridgend,  and  of  the  Turbervilles  who 
even  yet,  after  all  these  centuries,  retain  their  name 
and  position  in  Glamorganshire.  For  Paine  Turber- 
ville,  one  of  Fitzhamon's  twelve  knights,  having  been 
by  some  mischance  forgotten  in  the  distribution  of 
land,  inquired  of  his  chief  where  he  was  to  look  for 
his  reward.  '*  Here  are  arms  and  here  are  men,"  re- 
plied Fitzhamon ;  **  go  get  it  where  you  can."  So 
Turberville  went  to  Coity,  which  was  still  uncon- 
quered,  and  summoned  Morgan,  the  Welsh  lord,  to 
surrender  it  into  his  hands.  Whereupon  Turberviiie 
Morgan  came  out  leading  his  daughter,  atcoity. 
and  passing  through  the  army,  with  his  sword 
in  his  right  hand,  came  to  Paine  Turberville,  and 
told  him  that  if  he  would  marry  his  daughter,  and 
so  come  like  an  honest  man  into  his  castle,  he 
would  yield  it  to  him ;  but  if  not,  said  he,  "  let  not 
the  blood  of  any  of  our  men  be  lost,  ]3ut  let  this 
sword  and  arm  of  mine  and  those  of  yours  decide 
who  shall  call  this  castle  his  own."  Upon  that  Paine 
Turberville  drew  his  sword,  took  it  by  the  blade 
in  his  left  hand  and  gave  it  to  Morgan,  and  with  his 
right  hand  embraced  his  daughter.  After  settling 
matters  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  parties  he  went  to 
church  and  married  her,  and  so  came  to  the  lordship 
by  true  right  of  possession  ;  and  by  the  advice  of 
his  father-in-law  kept  under  his  command  two  thou- 
sand of  the  best  of  his  Welsh  soldiers. 

Turberville,  having  now  achieved  so  secure  a  posi- 
tion without  the  aid  of  Fitzhamon,  very  naturally 
refused  to  pay  him  tribute  or  own  him  as  his  over- 
lord, but  voluntarily  recognised  Caradoc,  the  son  of 


38  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

the  dispossessed  lestyn,  as  his  chief.  This  caused 
unpleasantness,  but  Turberville,  with  his  two  thou- 
sand Welshmen  and  his  father-in-law's  help,  was  too 
strong  for  Fitzhamon,  and  he  had  his  way.  It  must 
not,  however,  be  supposed  that  these  martial  settlers 
as  a  class  by  any  means  followed  the  example  of  the 
later  Norman  adventurers  in  Ireland,  and  became 
''more  Welsh  than  the  Welsh  themselves."  They 
were  too  near  their  King,  at  whose  will  they  held 
their  lands,  and  not  far  enough  removed  from  the 
centre  of  Anglo-Norman  life,  to  throw  off  its  interests 
and  lose  touch  with  their  connections.  Neverthe- 
less the  confusion  of  authority  in  South  and  Mid- 
Wales  increased  considerably  as  time  went  on ;  for 
not  only  did  Norman  barons  marry  Welsh  heiresses, 
but  occasionally  a  Welsh  chieftain  would  win  back  a 
Norman-Welsh  lordship  by  marriage,  and  present 
the  anomalous  spectacle  of  a  Welshman  holding 
Welsh  land  as  a  direct  vassal  of  the  King  of  England 
in  entire  independence  of  his  district  Prince.  But 
these  occasional  amenities  among  the  higher  aris- 
tocracy but  little  affected  the  mass  of  the  Welsh 
people,  who  stood  aloof  with  lowering  and  uncom- 
promising suUenness. 

It  was  this  intolerance  of  foreigners,  bred  in  the 
bone  and  blood  of  Welshmen,  or  this  excessive 
Welsh  and  patriotism,  call  it  what  you  will,  that 
Norman.  rnadc  possible  their  long  and  heroic  re- 
sistance to  the  Norman  yoke,  and  for  so  long  up- 
held the  tottering  thrones  of  their  not  always  honest, 
and  always  quarrelsome.  Princes.  They  hugged 
their  pedigrees  and  cherished  their  bards,  who  in 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  39 

turn  played  with  tireless  energy  upon  the  chords 
of  national  sentiment  and  martial  memories.  No 
transfer  of  land  to  Normans,  whether  due  to  the 
sword  or  to  more  peaceful  methods,  was  regarded  as 
otherwise  than  temporary.  As  in  parts  of  Ireland 
at  the  present  day,  generations  of  occupation  by  an 
alien  stock  commanded  no  respect  beyond  what 
belonged  to  the  force  of  ownership.  The  original 
owners  might  be  long  extinct  in  fact,  but  in  the 
mind  they  were  the  owners  still.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
has  a  short  memory ;  and  is  practical  even  in  mat- 
ters of  sentiment.  Four  or  five  generations  are  suf- 
ficient to  eliminate  the  memory  of  the  humble  or 
alien  origin  of  the  parvenu^  and  are  quite  enough  to 
fill  his  cup  of  social  reverence  to  the  brim ;  perhaps 
fortunately  so.  The  Celt,  and  particularly  the 
Welsh  Celt,  is  fashioned  differently.  With  him  the 
interloper  remained  an  interloper  far  beyond  his 
children's  children,  and  this  mental  attitude  had 
much  to  do  with  the  facility  with  which  a  popular 
leader  could  at  all  times  stir  up  strife  in  Wales, 
whatever  might  be  the  odds  against  success. 

We  have  seen,  then,  the  first  wedge  of  alien  occu- 
pation driven  into  this  hitherto  virgin  refuge  of  the 
ancient  British  stock.  For  we  must  remember  that, 
in  spite  of  continual  warfare,  the  Saxons  had  made 
no  impression  calling  for  notice  in  a  brief  survey  like 
this.  We  must  remember,  also,  that  the  Norman 
settlements  were  wholly  military.  The  followers 
that  came  with  these  adventurers  were  just  sufficient 
to  garrison  their  castles.  They  were  but  handfuls, 
and  lived  within  or  under  the  protection  of  the  Nor- 


40  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

man  fortress:  their  influence  upon  the  blood  of  the 
country  may,  I  think,  be  put  aside  with  certain  re- 
servations, as  scarcely  worth  considering. 

The  severance  of  half  the  present  county  of  Pem- 
broke from  Wales  in  the  reign   of  Henry  the  First 
must  by  no  means  be  passed  over  if  one 
Pembroke       ^s  to  get  a  proper  idea  of  what  was  meant 
and  the  j^y   Walcs  at   the   time  when  this  story 

opens.  It  was  in  this  King's  reign  that  a 
large  body  of  Flemings  were  flooded  out  in  the  Low 
Countries  by  a  great  inundation,  and  despairing  of 
finding  a  fresh  home  in  their  own  crowded  father- 
land, they  applied  to  the  King  of  England  to  allot 
them  territory  out  of  his  presumed  abundance.*  In 
their  appeal  the  King  saw  another  means  of  putting 
a  bridle  on  the  Welsh,  at  no  expense  to  himself,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  advantage  of  posing  as  a  phil- 
anthropist. He  granted  therefore  to  the  Flemings 
just  so  much  of  the  south-western  promontory  of 
Wales  as  they  could  hold  and  conquer,  together 
with  the  peninsula  of  Gower,  which  juts  out  from  the 
coast  of  modern  Glamorgan.  Pembroke  was  the 
more  important  and  populous  colony  of  the  two. 
The  native  inhabitants,  it  may  be  presumed,  were 
few  in  the  twelfth  century  ;  at  any  rate  the  Flemings 
had  no  difficulty  in  driving  them  inland  and  form- 
ing a  permanent  settlement.  There  was  no  assimila- 
tion with  the  natives  ;  they  were  completely  pushed 
back,  and  in  a  short  time  Normans  came  to  the 


*  Some  accounts  say  that  Henry  first  received  them  in  England, 
but  got  uneasy  at  the  number  which  accumulated  there  and  ordered 
them  all  into  south-west  Wales.  Small  lodgments  of  Normans  and 
other  aliens  would  seem  to  have  preceded  the  Flemings. 


*•  • • • I 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  41 

assistance  of  the  Flemings.  The  great  castles  of 
Pembroke,  Manorbier,  Haverfordwest,  and  Tenby 
were  built,  and  speaking  broadly  the  south-western 
half  of  the  modern  county  of  Pembroke  became  as 
Teutonic,  and  in  time  as  Enghsh,  as  Wiltshire  or 
Suffolk.  Continual  fighting  went  on  between  the  nat- 
ive Welsh  and  the  intruders,  keeping  alive  the  ani- 
mosity between  the  two  races  and  laying  the  seeds 
of  that  remarkable  cleavage  which  makes  the  county 
of  Pembroke  present  to-day  an  ethnological  curios- 
ity without  a  parallel  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

The  Flemings,  as  English  subjects  and  constantly 
reinforced  by  English  arrivals,  lost  in  time  their 
nationality  and  their  language,  and  became  as  thor- 
oughly Anglo-Saxon  as  the  most  fervent  Salop- 
ian or  the  most  stolid  Wiltshireman.  They  remain 
so,  in  a  great  measure,  to  this  very  day.  Intermix- 
ture with  the  Celtic  and  Welsh-speaking  part  of  the 
county  has  been  rare.  The  isolated  position  of 
further  Pembrokeshire  makes  this  anomaly  still 
more  peculiar,  cut  off  as  it  is  from  England  by 
nearly  a  hundred  miles  of  Welsh  territory,  and 
more  particularly  when  the  fact  is  remembered  that 
for  centuries  there  has  been  no  religious  or  political 
friction  to  keep  these  two  communities  of  a  remote 
countryside  apart.  Somewhat  parallel  conditions 
in  Derry  or  Donegal,  though  of  much  more  recent 
origin,  are  far  more  explicable  owing  to  the  civil 
strife  and  rehgious  hatred  which  are  or  have  been 
rife  there.  Even  so  the  mixture  of  Scotch-Irish 
Protestants  with  Celtic  Catholics  has,  I  fancy,  been 
much  greater  in   Ireland  than  that  of  the  Anglo- 


42  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

Fleming  Protestants  of  further  Pembroke  and  of 
Gower  with  their  Welsh  neighbours  of  the  same 
faith  "  beyond  the  Rubicon  "  in  the  same  counties. 

These  conquests  may,  however,  be  regarded  as 
constituting  for  some  time  the  extent  of  soHd  Nor- 
man occupation.  The  story  of  Wales  is  one  long  tale 
of  continuous  attempts  by  Norman  barons  on  the 
territory  of  the  Welsh  Princes,  varied  by  the  serious 
invasions  of  English  Kings,  which  were  undertaken 
either  directly  or  indirectly  on  behalf  of  their  Nor- 
man-Welsh vassals.  Upon  the  whole  but  slow 
headway  was  made.  Anglo-Norman  successes  and 
acquisitions  were  frequently  wiped  out,  for  the  time 
at  any  rate,  by  the  unconquerable  tenacity  of  the 
Welsh  people,  while  every  now  and  again  some 
great  warrior  arose  who  rolled  the  whole  tide  of 
alien  conquest,  save  always  further  Pembroke,  back 
again  pell-mell  across  the  border,  and  restored  Wales, 
panting,  harried,  and  bloody,  to  the  limits  within 
which  William  the  Norman  found  it. 

One  of  these  heroic  leaders  was  Owen  ap  Grififith, 
Prince  of  Gwynedd,  who  arose  in  the  time  of  Henry 
II.  of  England.  Not  only  did  he  clear 
North  Wales  of  Normans,  but  he  so  ruth- 
lessly harried  Cheshire  and  the  Marches,  and  so 
frightened    the    Prince    of    Powys   that    the   latter 

,  joined  the  Norman-Welsh  nobles  in  a  pet- 
Henry  II.  and-'  * 

Owen  Gwyn-  ition  to  the  King  of  England  begging 
******  him  to  come  up  in  all  haste  with  a  strong 

force  to  their  aid.  Henry,  under  whom  England 
was  rapidly  recovering  strength  and  cohesion,  now 
essayed  that  profitless  and   thorny  path  of  Welsh 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  43 

invasion,  which  his  predecessors,  Norman  and  Saxon, 
had  so  often  trodden,  and  his  successors  were  so 
often  and  so  vainly  to  tread. 

He  marched  with  a  large  army  to  Chester  and,  be- 
ing there  joined  by  the  Prince  of  Powys  and  the 
Norman- Welsh  barons,  encamped  on  Saltney  Marsh. 
Owen  with  the  forces  of  North  Wales  had 

,     ,  ,     ,  .  r  -n       •  Henry  II.  de- 

come  out  to  meet  him  as  far  as  Basmg-        featedby 

werk,  and  as  the  vanguard  of  the  royal  °wen  Gwyn- 
army  advanced  against  the  Welsh  through 
the  wooded  defile  of  Coed  Eulo  the  sons  of  Owen 
fell  suddenly  upon  it,  and  with  great  slaughter  rolled 
it  back  upon  the  main  force.  The  King,  then  taking 
the  seashore  route,  made  head  for  Rhuddlan  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Clwyd.  But  near  Flint,  in  another 
narrow  pass,  he  met  with  even  a  worse  disaster. 
For  here  his  vanguard  was  again  attacked,  many  of 
his  knights  and  nobles  slain,  his  standard  overthrown, 
and  he  himself  in  danger  of  his  life.  Eventually  he 
reached  Rhuddlan,  garrisoned  it,  came  to  terms  with 
Owen,  and  went  home  again.  But  there  were  two 
fierce  and  uncontrollable  Princes  now  in  Wales: 
Owen  himself,  "  Eryr  Eryrod  Eryri  " — the  "  Eagle  of 
the  Eagles  of  Snowdon  " — and  Rhys  ap  Rhys  ap  Grif- 
Griffith,  the  scarcely  less  warlike  ruler  of  *^*^' 

South  Wales.  The  period  was  one  of  continuous 
conflict  in  Wales  and  on  the  border,  and  it  ended 
in  something  like  a  national  movement  against 
all  the  centres  of  Norman  power,  both  royal  and 
baronial,  that  were  sprinkled  over  the  country. 
This  was  in  1165,  and  Henry,  vowing  vengeance,  ad- 
vanced once  more  to  the  Welsh  border.     He    had 


44  Owen  Glymdwr 


[400- 


learnt  wisdom,  however,    in   his    former   campaign, 

and    moved    cautiously    to    Rhuddlan    in  order  to 

make  a  preHminary   investigation  of  the 

Henry  II.  r     re-    -  t  •  ,  t 

again  in  State  of  affairs.     It  was  evident  that  noth- 

waies,  1166.  j-j^g  i^^i-  ^  great  effort  would  be  of  any  avail ; 
so  returning  toEngland  he  gathered  a  large  army  and 
sat  down  at  Chester.  In  the  meantime  Owen  Gwyn- 
edd  as  suzerain  or  Pendragon  of  Wales,  with  Rhys, 
Prince  of  Deheubarth,  and  even  the  two  Princes  of 
vacillating  Powysland,  which  had  recently  been  split 
in  half,  and  in  fact  with  the  whole  strength  of  the 
Battle  of  Cymry,  raised  the  dragon  standard  at  Cor- 
Crogen.  ^sr&x\.  on  the  Dee.     The  two  armies  met 

eventually  upon  the  banks  of  the  Ceiriog,  just  be- 
neath the  hill  where  the  Castle  of  Chirk,  then  called 
Crogen,*  now  lifts  its  storied  towers.  The  slopes  of 
the  Welsh  mountains,  even  to  Snowdon  itself,  were 
in  those  days  sprinkled  freely,  if  not  thickly  clad, 
with  timber,  and  a  feature  of  this  expedition  was 
some  two  thousand  woodcutters  employed  to  open 
the  country  for  Henry's  army  and  secure  it  against 
those  ambuscades  in  which  the  Welsh  were  so  ter- 
ribly proficient.  But  Owen  Gwynedd  came  down 
from  the  Berwyns  this  time  to  meet  his  foe  and,  as  I 
have  said,  a  long  and  fierce  battle  was  waged  in  the 
deep  valley  of  the  Ceiriog.  The  Welsh  were  in  the 
end  forced  to  retreat,  and  recrossing  the  Bervvyn 
they  took  post  again  at  Corwen,  and,  as  tradition  has 
it,  on  the  lofty  British  camp  at  Caer  Drewyn  on  the 
north  bank  of  the  Dee.     Henry   followed  and   sat 

*  This  was  a  Welsh  fortress  on  or  near  the  site  of  the  present  castle, 
whose  origin  will  be  spoken  of  in  another  chapter. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  45 

down  with  his  army  on  the  high  ridge  of  the  Berwyn, 
above  Pen-y-pigin,  the  river  flowing  through  what 
was  then  no  doubt  a  swampy  valley  between  the 
two  positions.  It  was  the  old  story,  a  wearisome 
enough  one  in  the  long  strife  between  England  and 
Wales.  Henry  dared  not  advance  in  the  face  of  the 
difilicult  country  before  him  and  the  Welsh-Henry  returns 
men's  superiority  in  hill  and  woodland  *°  England, 
fighting.  Moreover  his  provisions  had  run  out,  and 
to  make  matters  worse  the  weather  broke  up,  so 
there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  march  his  great 
army  home  again.  The  Welsh  Princes  now  attacked 
and  destroyed  many  of  the  King's  castles  in  the 
North,  and  on  the  border  recovered  Flint  or  Tegen- 
gle,  which  Henry  had  nominally  annexed,  and  in  the 
South  sorely  pressed  the  Norman  barons  in  Glamor- 
gan, Brecon,  and  Gwent.  But  the  old  madness  of 
greed  and  jealousy  which  in  Welsh  Princes  seemed 
inseparable  from  success,  now  took  possession  of 
Rhys  and  Owen  ;  they  turned  on  their  late  allies  of 
Powys,  fickle  ones,  no  doubt,  and  divided  their  in- 
heritance between  them. 

As  for  Owen  Gwynedd,  we  must  leave  him  and  his 
deeds  to  the  fame  which,  wherever  Welshmen  con- 
gregate, endures  forever,  and  pass  on  to  a  brief  men- 
tion of  his  son  Howel,  who  has  earned  immortality 
in  a  curiously  different  field.  Amid  the  Howeiap 
passions  and  storms  of  that  fierce  age  in  Owen  Gwyn- 
Wales,  it  is  strange  enough,  not  to  find  a  *    * 

poet-Prince,  but  to  find  one  singing  in  such  strains 
as  did  Howel  ap  Owen  Gwynedd.  Warlike  ballads 
are  readily  conceivable  in    such  an  atmosphere  as 


46  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

that  in  which  Howel  Hved,  and  of  war  and  hunting 
he  wrote.  But  he  also  wrote  sonnets,  many  of  which 
are  extant,  to  the  yellow  bloom  of  the  furze,  the 
blossoms  of  the  apple  tree,  the  laugh  of  his  bright- 
eyed  sister,  to  fields  of  tender  trefoil,  and  to  night- 
ingales singing  in  privet  groves.  He  shared  the  fate 
of  so  many  Welsh  Princes  and  fell  by  the  dagger, 
the  assassins  being  his  half-brothers.  Both  he  and 
his  famous  father  were  buried  in  Bangor  Cathedral. 

It  may  be  well  to  point  out  that  one  of  the  causes 
of  this  chronic  strife  between  the  Welsh  Princes,  be- 
sides the  prevalent  custom  of  gavelkind,  was  that  of 
fostering  out  the  children  of  the  royal  houses ;  for 
when  the  inevitable  struggle  for  the  succession  en- 
sued, each  claimant  was  backed  up  and  vigorously 
assisted  by  the  whole  interest  of  the  family  in  which 
he  had  been  reared. 

To  another  son  of  Owen  Gwynedd  belongs  a  tale, 
notable  in  Welsh  tradition  at  any  rate,  if  not  in  seri- 
Madocap  ^^^  history.  Madoc,  who  had  for  his  por- 
owenGwyn-  tion  the  country  lying  round  the  western 
base  of  Snowdon,  found  the  struggle  for 
the  possession  of  it  perhaps  too  wearisome,  for  he 
manned  a  small  fleet  and  sailed  out  over  the  western 
seas  for  many  months  till  he  discovered  a  strange 
Madoc's  col-  country,  good  in  all  things  for  the  habita- 
onyinMexico,tion  of  man.  From  this  venture,  so  the 
"  ^*  legend  runs,  Madoc  returned,  and,  collect- 

ing a  following  of  three  hundred  men  in  North 
Wales,  again  safely  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  there 
founded,  in  what  is  supposed  to  have  been  Mexico,^ 

*  If  this  were  merely  a  fairy  tale  it  would  certainly  be  out  of  place 


1400] 


Introductory  Sketch  47 


a  colony  of  Welshmen,  from  whom  sprang  the  royal 
dynasty  of  Montezuma. 

Dafydd,  the  usurping  half-brother  and  murderer 
of  the  poet-Prince  Howel,  had  better  luck  than  he 
deserved.  King  Henry,  now  bent  on  making  friends 
with  the  Welsh,  particularly  the  North 
Welsh  as  being  the  most  formidable  and  apowen 
homogeneous,  gave  him  in  marriage  his  Gwynedd, 
sister  Emma  and  with  her  the  rich  barony  "^°* 

of  Ellesmere.  Troops  from  South  Wales  were  al- 
ready helping  Henry  in  Ireland,  and  now  Dafydd 
with  a  large  force  of  his  own  people  crossed  to  Nor- 
mandy to  fight  the  battles  of  his  royal  brother-in- 
law  in  that  country.  It  is  characteristic  of  Welsh 
politics  that  while  Dafydd  was  in  France,  the  only 
one  of  his  brothers  whom  he  had  not  killed  or  im- 
prisoned took  occasion  to  seize  Anglesey  and  the 
four  Cantrefs  that  now  make  Carnarvonshire. 

Norman  manners  and  customs  seem  about  this 
time  to  have  considerably  infected  the  Welsh  aris- 
tocracy. That  celebrated  ecclesiastic  and  author, 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  comes  upon  the  Giraidus 
scene  at  this  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  cambrensis. 
and  has  much  to  tell  us  out  of  the  fulness  of  his 
knowledge  of  Wales.  He  was  of  illustrious  birth, 
half  Welsh,  half  Norman,  and  Archdeacon  of  Here- 
ford, though  his  mere  office  by  no  means  suggests 

here  ;  but  as  regards  the  Welsh  colony  it  has  been  considered  not 
wholly  unworthy  of  the  attention  of  some  serious  ethnologists. 
It  may  further  be  remarked,  without  comment,  that  a  comparatively 
modern  and  (in  the  vulgar  sense)  popular  short  history  of  Wales  treats 
the  whole  story  as  authentic  fact  without  even  a  suggestion  of  any 
legendary  attributes  !     There  we  will  leave  it. 


48  Oiven  Glyndwr  [400- 

his  importance,  much  less  the  importance  he  attrib- 
uted to  himself.  It  is  his  entertaining  descriptions  of 
the  Welsh  life  he  knew  so  well  that  have  immortal- 
ised him,  and  his  mixed  blood  would  seem  to  have 
endowed  him  with  the  impartiality  which  he  pro- 
fesses. He  was  violently  opposed  among  other 
things  to  the  encroachments  of  the  Norman  Church 
in  Wales  ;  for  the  Pope,  as  I  have  stated,  had  now  be- 
come recognised  as  omnipotent,  and  Canterbury  as 
the  source  of  all  authority.  Giraldus  strove  hard  to 
get  St.  David's  created  an  Archbishopric,  and  to 
persuade  the  Pope  to  send  thither  his  pallium,  the 
symbol  of  consecration.  Though  it  is  true  he  was 
himself  burning  to  be  installed  at  St.  David's,  Giral- 
dus probably  reflected  the  popular  opinion  of  con- 
temporary Welshmen  in  favour  of  recovering  the  old 
independence  of  the  Welsh  Church.  The  Crusades 
were  now  at  their  zenith,  and  Archbishop  Baldwin 
undertook  at  this  time  his  famous  progress  through 
Wales  on  behalf  of  the  holy  cause.  Giraldus  ac- 
companied him  as  chaplain,  interpreter,  and  friend 
on  this  protracted  tour,  and,  happily  for  us,  as  special 
reporter  too.  The  Archbishop's  exhortations  caused 
some  passing  enthusiasm  throughout  the  country, 
though  the  practical  results  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  considerable.  Some  say  that  Baldwin's  main 
object  was  to  hold^high  mass  in  St.  David's  Ca- 
thedral, and  so  put  the  coping-stone,  as  it  were,  on 
the  annexation  of  the  Welsh  Church. 

As  regards  the  Crusades  the  Welsh  in  the  Middle 
Ages  do  not  seem  to  have  been  great  rovers  or 
much   given    to   doing    business    on    great   waters ; 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  49 

always,  of  course,  excepting  Madoc  ap  Owen 
Gwynedd,  the  discoverer  of  America  ! 

"  These  people,"  says  Giraldus,  alluding  to  the  Welsh, 
"  are  light  and  active,  hardy  rather  than  strong,  and 
entirely  bred  up  to  the  use  of  arms  ;  for  not  Giraldus  on 
only  the  nobles,  but  all  the  people  are  trained  the  weish 
to  war,  and  when  the  trumpet  sounds  the  hus-  people, 

bandman  rushes  as  eagerly  from  his  plough  as  the  courtier 
from  his  Court.  They  live  more  on  flesh,  milk  and  cheese 
than  bread,  pay  little  attention  to  commerce,  shipping, 
or  manufacture,  and  devote  their  leisure  to  the  chase  and 
martial  exercises.  They  earnestly  study  the  defence  of 
their  country,  and  their  liberty.  For  these  they  fight,  for 
these  they  undergo  hardships,  and  for  these  willingly 
sacrifice  their  lives.  They  esteem  it  a  disgrace  to  die  in 
bed,  an  honour  to  die  on  the  field  of  battle." 

"  Their  arms  and  their  coats  of  mail,"  he  goes  on  to 
tell  us,  "  are  light,  so  also  are  their  helmets,  and  shields, 
and  greaves  plated  with  iron.  The  higher  class  go  to 
war  on  swift  and  well-bred  steeds,  but  are  ready  at  a 
moment's  notice,  should  the  nature  of  the  ground  re- 
quire it,  to  fight  on  foot  as  do  the  mass  of  their  people. 
In  times  of  peace  the  young  men  by  wandering  in  the 
dense  forests  and  scaling  the  summits  of  the  highest 
mountains  inure  themselves  to  the  hardships  of  war 
when  the  necessity  arrives." 

They  were  addicted  neither  to  gluttony  nor  drunk- 
enness, and  could  readily  go  for  two  days  without 
food,  eating  in  any  case  but  twice  a  day.  They 
could  lie  out,  moreover,  all  night  in  rain  and  storm, 
if  an  enemy  had  to  be  watched,  or  an  ambush  to  be 


50  Owen  Glyndwr  L400- 

laid.  There  were  whole  bands  of  the  better-born 
young  men  whose  sole  profession  was  arms,  and  to 
whom  free  quarters  were  given  upon  all  occasions. 
The  Welsh  among  other  things  were  a  clean-shaven 
race,  reserving  only  their  moustaches,  and  keeping 
the  hair  of  their  head  short.  The  teeth  of  both 
sexes  too  were  a  special  matter  of  pride.  On  this 
account  they  even  abstained  from  hot  meats,  and 
rubbed  their  teeth  constantly  with  green  hazel  till 
they  shone  like  ivory.  '*  They  have  powerful  under- 
standings, being  much  quicker  at  their  studies  than 
other  Western  nations,  ready  in  speech  and  confid- 
ent in  expressing  themselves,  even  to  the  lowest 
class."  Their  love  of  high  birth  and  long  pedigrees 
was  then  as  now  conspicuous,  and  the  tribal  system 
though  rapidly  modifying  under  Saxon  and  Nor- 
man influences  encouraged  them  to  think  much  of 
their  ancestors,  and  to  be  quick  in  avenging  insults 
to  their  blood.  This  custom,  indeed,  was  carried  to 
such  lengths,  that  the  Welshman's  tendency  to 
family  quarrels,  coupled  with  his  sensitiveness  for 
the  family  honour,  was  neatly  satirised  by  an  old 
proverb  which  affirmed  that  he  **  loved  his  brother 
better  dead  than  alive." 

Giraldus,  who  may  be  regarded  as  a  well-informed 
neutral  in  the  matter,  criticises  the  injudicious 
manner  in  which  war  had  hitherto  been  prosecuted 
against  his  countrymen.  He  deprecates,  for  instance, 
the  use  of  heavy-armed  soldiers  and  a  profusion  of 
cavalry,  which  the  active  Welshmen  in  their  mount- 
ain country  are  easily  able  to  elude  and  often  to 
defeat.     He  declares  that  the  only  way  to  conquer 


on 
war- 
fare. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  5 1 

Wales  would  be  by  winter  campaigns,  when  the 
leaves  are  off  the  trees  and  the  pastures  withered. 
"Then,"  he  writes,  "  English  troops  must  oiraidus 
be  pushed  forward  at  all  hazards,  for  even  weish 
if  the  first  are  slaughtered  any  number  of 
fresh  ones  can  be  purchased  for  money  ;  whereas  the 
Welsh  are  restricted  in  the  number  of  their  men." 
The  question  of  commissariat,  the  crux  of  all  Welsh 
campaigns  in  those  days,  seems  to  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  clerical  critic. 

Having  thus  descanted  on  their  virtues,  Giraldus 
now  assumes  the  Anglo-Norman  on  the  strength  of 
his  half  blood,  and  enumerates   their  weak  points. 

"  The  Welsh  are  flighty,"  he  tells  us,  "  and  readily 
undertake  things  which  they  have  not  the  perseverance 
to  carry  out.  They  have  little  respect  for  oaths,  and  not 
much  for  the  truth,  and  when  a  good  opportunity  occurs 
for  attacking  an  enemy  they  regard  neither  truces  nor 
treaties.  In  war  they  are  very  severe  in  their  first  attack, 
terrible  by  their  clamour  and  looks,  filling  the  air  with 
horrid  shouts  and  the  deep-toned  clangour  of  very  long 
trumpets.  Bold  in  the  first  onset  they  cannot  bear  a  re- 
pulse, being  easily  thrown  into  confusion,  as  soon  as  they 
turn  their  backs.  Yet  though  defeated  and  put  to  flight 
one  day,  they  are  ready  to  resume  the  combat  on  the 
next,  neither  dejected  by  their  loss  nor  by  their  dishon- 
our ;  easier  in  short  to  overcome  in  a  single  battle,  than 
in  a  protracted  war.  Their  great  weakness  after  all," 
concludes  Gerald,  "  lies  in  their  internal  jealousies.  If 
they  were  inseparable,  they  would  be  insuperable,  and 
above  all,  if  instead  of  having  three  Princes  they  had 
but  one,  and  that  a  good  one  !  " 


52  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

For  their  music  this  invaluable  chronicler  has  no- 
thing but  enthusiasm,  dwelling  upon  the  sweetness  of 
their  instruments,  the  harp  and  the  ''crwth"  (a 
primitive  violin)  in  particular,  and,  above  all,  on  their 
habit  of  singing  in  parts,  and  not,  as  most  other 
nations  do,  in  unison. 

However  distasteful  the  aggression  of  the  Roman 

Church  may  have  been  to  the  mass  of  the  Welsh 

people  in  the  twelfth  century,  this  period 

Religious  ,  ......  g. 

fervour  in  the  brought  a  great  revival  of  religious  fervour, 
twelfth  cent,  gygri  if  it  camc  largely  from  alien  sources. 

ury. 

The  rude  churches  of  wood  or  wickerwork 
that  five  and  six  centuries  before  had  marked  the 
dawn,  not  of  Christianity,  but  of  organised  Christian- 
ity, now  gave  place  to  solid  and  sometimes  beautiful 
specimens  of  early  English  or  Norman  art.  Many 
of  them,  not  greatly  altered  by  the  restorer's  touch, 
still  stand  amid  the  grandeur  of  majestic  mountains 
or  the  loneliness  of  surf-beaten  shores,  and  seem  in 
consequence  to  speak  more  eloquently  of  these  far- 
off,  mysterious  times  than  their  more  imposing 
contemporaries,  which  are  set  amid  tame  and  com- 
monplace surroundings.  In  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries,  too,  the  great  Welsh  abbeys  were 
in  their  prime.     Valle  Crucis,  whose  graceful  ruins 

still  defy  the  ages  amid  the  matchless  beau- 
Abbeys.  -^  *=* 

ties  of  the  Vale  of  Llangollen,  was  the  pride 

of  Powys ;  YstradfBur  {Strata  Florada)  in  Cardigan 

shared  with  the  Cistercian  House  of  Aber  Conway 

the    honour   of     recording    and     safeguarding    the 

chronicles  of  the  PrincipaUty  and  of  giving  burial  to 

Her  most  illustrious  dead.      In  a  wild  Radnor  valley 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  53 

stood  the  great  Franciscan  abbey  of  Cvvm  Hir, 
while  in  the  green  meadows  where  the  silver  streams 
of  the  Mawddach  and  the  Wnion  meet  in  the  shadow 
of  Cader  Idris,  you  may  yet  see  the  ivy  clustering  on 
the  ruins  of  the  once  powerful  foundation  of  St. 
Illtyd.  Some  centuries  older  than  any  of  these, 
the  most  ancient  of  Welsh  abbeys  was  still  intact 
upon  Ynys  Enlli,  the  remote  island  of  Bardsey,  and 
served  the  churches  that  were  so  thickly  sprinkled 
along  the  rugged  coasts  of  Lleyn.  It  had  been  the 
"  Rome  of  the  Cymry."  Thousands  of  pilgrims 
had  annually  turned  thither  their  weary  steps.  It 
was  accounted  a  good  thing  to  go  there,  and  still 
better  to  die  there;  and  though  divided  from  the  main- 
land by  three  miles  of  water,  whose  tides  rage  with 
notorious  violence,  the  dust  of  *'  twenty  thousand 
saints  "  lies,  as  all  good  Welshmen  know,  beneath  the 
sod  of  this  narrow  and  stormy  isle.  These  are  but  a 
few  haphazard  examples  of  the  centres  of  religion, 
which,  amid  the  fierce  passions  of  the  Celt  and  the 
restless  greed  of  the  Norman,  struck  at  least  one 
peaceful  note  in  nearly  every  Cambrian  valley. 

We  are  now  within  less  than  a  century  of  the  fi- 
nal overthrow  of  Welsh  independence.  Enough  has 
been  said  to  show  how  gradually  and  with  what  hard 
fighting  the  disintegration  of  Wales  was  brought 
about,  and  still  fiercer  struggles  were  yet  to  come. 
The  Princes  of  Powys,  though  liable  to  fitful  attempts 
at  independence,  had  now  virtually  sub-  p^^^  ^  ^^^ 
mitted  to  the  English  King,  and  even  the  English 
ranged  themselves  at  times  against  their  pow". 

countrymen.     North  Wales  was  still  intact,  always 


54  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

excepting  that  debatable  land  between  the  Dee  and 
Conway,  the  Perfeddwlad,  which  was  lost  and  re- 
taken more  times  than  it  would  be  possible  to  take 
account  of  here.  The  great  region  of  South  Wales, 
however,  from  the  edge  of  Hereford  to  Cardigan 
Bay,  presented  a  rare  confusion  of  authority.  One 
scarcely  ventures  to  touch  the  subject  within  such 
narrow  limits  as  ours  must  needs  be.  Hardly  as 
they  were  sometimes  beset,  even  to  the  length  of 
being  driven  from  their  lands  and  castles,  the  Nor- 
man adventurers  steadily  ate  up  bit  by  bit  the  old 
Kingdom  of  Deheubarth.  Each  man  had  just  so 
Norman  en-  Hiuch  territory  as  he  could  win  by  the 
croachments.  sword,  and,  what  was  more  important, 
only  so  much  as  he  could  keep  by  it.  They  all 
held  their  lands,  whose  limits  were  but  vaguely  de- 
fined by  charter  or  title-deed,  since  they  were  un- 
definable,  direct  from  the  King  of  England,  and 
had  by  virtue  of  their  office  the  right  to  sit  in  Par- 
liament, and  to  support  the  royal  canopy  at  corona- 
tions with  silver  spears. 

In  their  own  domains  they  possessed  absolute 
authority,  so  far  as  they  could  exercise  it,  even  over 
the  lives  of  their  tenants.  Small  towns  began  to 
grow  under  the  protection  of  their  castle  walls,  and 
were  occupied  by  their  retainers.  Courts  were 
established  in  each  lordship,  and  justice  was  adminis- 
tered to  the  Anglo-Norman  minority  after  English 
custom  and  to  the  Welsh  majority  after  the  custom 
of  old  Welsh  law,  and  in  the  native  tongue.  Let  me 
repeat,  I  am  but  generalising.  The  condition  of 
Wales  at  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  was 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  55 

far  too  complex  to  admit  of  analytical  treatment 
within  such  a  brief  space  as  this.  The  exceptions  to 
every  rule  were  numerous.  The  King  of  waiesinthe 
England  himself,  for  example,  owned  many  thirteenth 
lordships  and  was  represented  in  them  by  "^^^  ^^^' 
a  Justiciar  or  BaiHff,  and  sometimes  this  function- 
ary was  actually  a  Welshman.  Here  and  there 
again  a  Welsh  noble  held  property  as  a  Norman 
Baron  from  the  King  while  occasionally  a  Nor- 
man did  allegiance  for  his  barony  to  a  Welsh 
Prince,  and  posed  as  a  Welshman. 

The  landed  system  of  Wales  in  the  Middle  Ages 
is  still  more  hopeless  for  purposes  of  brief  descrip- 
tion. The  indigenous  tribal  system,  when  land  was 
held  in  families,  or  ''  gwelis,"  by  the  de-  Landed 

scendants  of  a  privileged  though  perhaps  system. 
a  large  class,  had  been  steadily  undergoing  modifi- 
cation since  the  later  Saxon  period,*  and  in  all 
directions  it  was  honeycombed  not  only  by  encroach- 
ing Normans,  with  their  feudal  and  manorial  land 
laws,  and  by  the  monastic  houses,  but  long  before 
the  twelfth  century  many  Welsh  princes  and  chief- 
tains had  felt  the  Saxon  influence,  and  had  drifted 
into  the  manorial  system,  so  far  at  least  as  their  own 
private  possessions  were  concerned. 

With  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  the  most 
illustrious  of  all  Welsh  Princes,  the  only  possible 
rival  of  Glyndwr,  Llewelyn  ap  lorwerth,  Lieweiyn  the 
comes  upon  the  scene  as  a  beardless  Great,  1195. 
boy ;  and  in  connection  with  this  famous  person  it 
may  fairly  be  said  that  though  there  was  plenty  of 

*See  Seebohm's  Tribal  Wales. 


56  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

fight  left  in  the  still  unconquered  moiety  of  South 
Wales,  and  a  little  even  in  Powys,  it  is  with  Gwynedd 
that  the  interest  of  the  last  century  of  Welsh  resist- 
ance mainly  rests.  Son  of  lorwerth  the  broken- 
nosed,  who,  though  the  rightful  heir  of  Owen 
Gwynedd,  was  rejected  on  account  of  this  disfigure- 
ment, Llewelyn  the  Great  is  supposed  with  good 
reason  to  have  been  born  in  the  castle  of  Dolwyd- 
delan,  whose  ruinous  walls,  perched  high  upon  the 
wild  foot-hills  of  Moel  Siabod,  still  look  down 
upon  the  infant  Llugwy  as  it  urges  its  buoyant 
streams  through  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  North 
Welsh  valleys. 

Nurtured  amid  the  clash  of  arms,  the  boy  was  only 
twelve  years  old  when  he  asserted  his  right  to  the 
throne,  and  won  it  against  his  Norman-loving  uncle, 
Dafydd,  whom  we  left,  it  will  be  remembered,  fight- 
ing in  France.  The  young  Prince,  backed  by  a 
strong  following  in  North  Wales,  and  by  the  arms  of 
Powys,  deposed  his  uncle  and  commenced  the  long 
career  which  earned  him  that  pre-eminent  fame  in 
warlike  deeds  which  attaches  to  his  name.  By  the 
time  he  was  of  age  he  was  fully  recognised  as 
"  Brenin  hoU  Cymru,"  or  Pendragon,  by  all  that  was 
left  of  Wales.  John,  who  now  occupied  the  English 
throne,  so  fully  recognised  the  dawn  of  a 
marries  King  ncw  and  formidable  personal  influence  in 
John's  daugh-  j^jg  tributary  realm  that  he  bestowed  upon 
Llewelyn  in  marriage  his  illegitimate 
daughter  Joan,  together  with  a  handsome  dower. 

The  first  few  years  of  the  thirteenth  century  were 
fully   occupied   with   ceaseless   strife   between    the 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  57 

Welsh  Princes,  their  relatives,  and  the  Norman  no- 
bles settled  in  their  midst.  It  will  be  sufficient  to 
say  that  Llewelyn,  high-handed  and  autocratic,  lost 
nothing  of  his  importance  in  such  congenial  work, 
and  by  1209  had  left  his  mark  upon  the  English 
borders  so  rudely  that  King  John  and  his  vigorous 
son-in-law  at  length  came  to  blows.  The  former, 
collecting  a  large  army,  penetrated  to  the  Conway 
River,  behind  which,  in  the  mountains  of  Snow- 
donia,  Llewelyn  with  all  his  people  and  all  his 
movables  defied  attack. 

John,  with  whom  went  many  of  the  nobles  of 
Powys,  sat  down  at  Deganwy  Castle,  one  of  the 
great  strategic  points  of  ancient  Wales,  john  invades 
and  one  whose  scanty  ruins  are  familiar  waies,  1209. 
to  visitors  at  Llandudno  and  Conway.  But  the 
Welsh  slipped  behind  them  and  cut  off  their  sup- 
plies. Nor  could  the  King  move  forward,  for 
across  the  river  rose  the  grim  masses  of  the  Snow- 
don  mountains.  His  people  were  reduced  to  eat- 
ing their  horses,  disease  was  ravaging  their  ranks, 
and  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  back ;  so 
John  returned  to  England  with  rage  at  his  heart. 
Nothing  daunted  he  returned  again  to  the  attack, 
marching  this  time  by  way  of  Oswestry  and  Corwen. 
He  was  now  both  more  daring  and  more  fortunate, 
seeing  that  he  succeeded  in  throwing  a  portion  of 
his  forces  into  Bangor.  This  checkmated  Llewelyn, 
and  he  sent  his  wife  to  see  what  terms 

I2Z3. 

could  be  exacted  from  her  father.      His 

reply  indicated  that  the  cession  of  the  unfortunate 

Perfeddwlad,  and  a  fine  of  twenty  thousand  head  of 


58  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

cattle  was  the  least  he  could  accept,  and  with  these 
terms  the  Welsh  Prince  complied.  The  latter  con- 
dition was  probably  inconvenient ;  the  former  was 
merely  a  question  of  might  for  the  time  being.  Any 
territorial  arrangement  with  John  was  likely  to  be 
of  only  temporary  consequence,  for  that  undesirable 
King  was  perpetually  under  the  ban  of  the  Church, 
and  had  none  too  many  friends.  So  in  1212,  when 
Pope  Innocent  absolved  all  John's  feudatories  from 
their  allegiance,  it  furnished  an  admirable 
sides  with  excuse  for  Llewelyn  to  reoccupy  the  whole 
the  barons      q£   j^jg   ancicnt    dominion    of    Gwynedd. 

against  John.  ^ 

When,  two  years  later,  John  s  own  barons 
rose  against  him,  they  formed  an  alliance  with  the 
powerful  Prince  of  Gwynedd,  who  captured  Shrews- 
bury, and  thereby  contributed  no  Httle  to  the  press- 
ure which  caused  the  signing  of  Magna  Charta. 

Llewelyn  subsequently  swept  through  both  Mid- 
and  South  Wales,  sacking  and  gutting  many  of  the 
hated  Norman  castles,  till  he  came  to  be  regarded  in 
the  South  with  as  much  devotion  as  in  his  own 
province.  Every  dispute  concerning  territory  or 
boundaries  was  submitted  ^to  his  judgment.  Even 
the  Flemings  of  Pembroke  for  the  first  time  since 
their  occupation  tendered  their  homage  to  a  Welsh 
Prince. 

But  between  the  death  of  John  and  the  accession 
of  Henry  IIL,  the  nobles  of  England  forgot  their 
obligations  to  Llewelyn,  while  the  Marcher  barons 
whose  castles  he  had  sacked  were  eager  enough  to 
turn  this  indifference  into  hostility.  The  result  of 
all  this  was  that  Llewelyn  found  himself  threatened 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  59 

by  the  whole  power  of  England  and  of  Anglo-Nor- 
man Wales  in  the  event  of  his  refusal  to 

Llewelyn 

abandon  his  recent  conquests.  Llewelyn  recognised  by 
ap  lorwerth,  wise  in  his  generation,  sought  John  as  ruier 
a  personal  interview  with  the  young  King, 
his  brother-in-law,  at  which  he  undertook  to  do  him 
homage  ;  a  formality  which,  I  have  more  than  once 
observed,  Welsh  Princes  had  no  reluctance  upon 
principle  in  conceding.  On  this  occasion,  moreover, 
Llewelyn's  pride  was  fully  gratified.  He  was  ofific- 
ially  recognised  as  Prince  of  all  Gwynedd,  with  the 
second  title  of  Lord  of  Snowdon,  and  his  suzerainty 
over  the  other  divisions  of  Wales  was  formally  ac- 
knowledged. We  find  him  emphasising  this  diplo- 
matic triumph  by  granting  that  bone  of  contention, 
the  Perfeddwlad,  to  his  son  Grififith,  and  the  latter 
with  the  fatuity  so  common  to  his  race  returning 
this  piece  of  parental  affection  by  laying  violent 
hands  on  Merioneth,  another  district  within  his 
father's  Principality.  This  was  a  wholly  outrageous 
proceeding  and  Llewelyn,  finding  remonstrance  un- 
availing, hastened  eastward  with  a  strong  force  to 
chastise  his  incorrigible  offspring.  The 
latter  was  quite  prepared  to  fight,  and  we  son  rebels 
have  the  edifying  picture  of  father  and  ^g^»"«*»^i™- 
son  facing  each  other  in  arms  in  a  cause  wholly 
wanton,  and  as  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  Nor- 
mans and  Saxons,  to  say  nothing  of  South  Welsh- 
men, ever  and  always  threatening  their  existence. 
A  reconciliation  was  happily  effected,  but  when 
Llewelyn  found  himself  with  most  of  the  soldiery 
of  his  province  around  him  in  arms,  the  temptation 


6o  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

was  too  great,  and  throwing  treaties  to  the  winds, 
he  fell  upon  the  English  border  and  harried  it  from 
Chester  to  Hereford.  Drawn  thence  south-west- 
wards by  signs  of  restlessness  on  the  part  of  that 
ever-rankling  sore,  the  Anglo-Flemish  colony  of 
Pembroke,  he  swept  through  South  Wales  and 
fought  a  great  battle  on  the  confines  of  their  terri- 
tory, which  the  fall  of  night  found  still  undecided. 

From  now  onwards  till  1234  there  was  little  peace 
in  Wales,  and  above  the  ceaseless  din  of  arms  the 
Continuous  Star  of  Llcwclyn  ap  lorwerth  shone  with 
war,  1234.  ever  increasing  glory.  Then  came  a  con- 
federation of  Norman  barons  against  King  Henry, 
who,  turning  for  support  to  Llewelyn,  entered  into  a 
solemn  league  and  covenant  both  with  him  and 
with  his  tributary  princes.  It  was  so  strong  a  com- 
bination that  Henry  shrank  from  coping  with  it.  It 
was  the  first  occasion  on  which  Anglo-Norman 
Barons  and  Welsh  Princes  on  an  important  scale  had 
formed  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  each  other  and,  still 
more,  had  honourably  observed  it.  Even  more  sin- 
gular perhaps  was  the  outcome,  when,  Henry  being 
forced  to  a  compromise,  a  Welsh  Prince  found  him- 
self in  the  unprecedented  position  of  being  able  to 
exact  conditions  for  the  great  Norman  feudatories  of 
Wales  from  a  Norman  King. 

Llewelyn,  having  buried  his  wife  Joan  in  the  abbey 
of  Llanfaes  near  Beaumaris,  himself  died  at  Aber  in 
Death  of  ^^  year  1240,  after  a  stormy  but,  judged 
Llewelyn  II.,  by  the  ethics  of  the  time,  a  brilliant  reign 
"'*°*  of  over  half  a  century.     His  triumphs  were 

of  course  for  the  most  part  military  ones.     But  no 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  6i 

Welsh  Princes  having  regard  to  the  decUne  of  Cymric 
power  had  ever  accomplished  quite  so  much.  He 
had  forced  his  authority  upon  all  Wales  except  the 
lordship  Marches,  but  he  had  also  been  a  sleepless 
patriot,  driving  the  English  arms  back  and  greatly 
weakening  the  English  influence  throughout  the 
whole  Principality.  With  this  scant  notice  of  a  long 
and  eventful  reign  we  must  take  leave  of  the  war- 
like son  of  lorwerth.  He  was  buried  at  Aber  Con- 
way in  the  abbey  he  had  founded  ;  but  his  stone 
coffin  was  removed  in  later  days  to  the  beautiful 
church  at  Llanrwst,  where  amid  the  historic  treas- 
ures of  the  Gwydir  Chapel  it  still  recalls  to  the 
memory  of  innumerable  pilgrims  "  the  eagle  of  men, 
who  loved  not  to  lie  nor  sleep,  who  towered  above 
the  rest  of  men  with  his  long  red  lance  and  his  red 
helmet  of  battle  crested  with  a  savage  wolf,  Llewelyn 
the  Great." 

Wales,  though  rapidly  approaching  the  era  of  her 
political  extinction,  was  now  so  unusually  strong  and 
even  aggressive  that  the  English  King  was  com- 
pelled to  watch  the  course  of  events  there  with  a 
vigilant  eye.  From  the  Welsh  point  of  view  it  was 
of  vital  importance  that  Llewelyn's  successor  in 
Gwynedd  should  be  both  acceptable  to  his  people 
and  strong  in  himself.  Unhappily  he  was  neither, 
unless  indeed  obstinacy  may  count  for  strength.  Of 
Llewelyn's  family  two  sons  alone  concern  us  here. 
Griffith,  the  elder  of  these  by  a  Welsh  mother,  has 
been  already  alluded  to  as  going  to  war  in  such  wild 
fashion  with  his  father.  Rightly  or  wrongly  he  was 
regarded  as  illegitimate,  though  that  circumstance,  it 


62  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

may  be  remarked  parenthetically,  was  not  such  a 
vital  matter  in  Old  Wales.  But  his  father's  marriage 
with  an  English  King's  daughter  suggests  the  possi- 
bihty  of  making  too  hght  of  a  former  and  less  dis- 
tinguished alliance.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  younger 
of  the  two,  the  son  of  the  Princess  Joan  and  nephew 
of  Henry  III.,  succeeded  in  seating  himself  on  his 
father's  throne,  though  not  without  protest  from  the 
Welsh  nobility  who  did  not  by  any  means  relish  his 
English  blood.  Dafydd  had  all  the  English  influ- 
ence behind  him,  while  his  close  connection  with  the 
King  seemed  to  make  for  peace.  But  Griffith,  the 
elder,  in  spite  of  his  presumed  illegitimacy,  was  the 
popular  candidate,  and  Dafydd  did  not  improve 
his  own  position  by  proceeding  to  strip  his  half- 
brother  of  his  private  property,  and  immuring  his 
person  in  Criccieth  Castle.  All  Wales  protested. 
The  Bishop  of  Bangor  went  so  far  as  to  excommuni- 
cate his  temporal  ruler,  and  King  Henry  himself  on 
his  distant  throne  expressed  unmistakable  disap- 
proval of  the  whole  business.  But  Dafydd  cared 
neither  for  King  nor  Bishop.  To  the  former  he  re- 
plied that  if  Griffith  were  at  liberty  there  would  be 
no  peace  in  Wales,  a  possibility  that  seems  by  no 
means  remote  when  one  considers  the  performances 
of  this  young  man  in  his  father's  Hfetime.  Henry  was 
not  to  be  thus  put  off,  and  approached  the  Marches 
with  a  strong  army.  This  unmistakable  procedure 
Griffith  sent  ^"^^  ^^^  almost  unanimous  support  it  met 
to  the  Tower  with  from  the  Welsh  nobiHty  frightened 
y  enry  .  ^^{y^^  j^-j^q  ^  promise  of  submission.  But 
the  upshot  of  all  this  was  not  precisely  what  Griffith's 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  63 

Welsh  friends  had  expected.  He  was  released 
from  Criccieth,  it  is  true,  but  only  to  be  transferred 
to  the  Tower  of  London  pending  Henry's  decision 
as  to  his  ultimate  fate. 

Much  more  important  than  this  disposal  of  Grif- 
fith's person  was  the  extraction  from  Dafydd  by  his 
uncle  of  one  of  the  most  humiliating  treaties  ever 
wrung  from  a  Welsh  Prince,  a  treaty  which  might 
well  cause  his  father,  the  great  Llewelyn,  to  turn  in 
his  grave  beside  the  Conway.  Every  advantage  that 
Llewelyn's  strong  arm  had  gained  was  tamely  aband- 
oned by  his  unworthy  son.  The  Princes  of  Powys 
and  South  Wales  were  absolved  from  their  oath  of 
homage  to  the  ruler  of  Gwynedd,  which  Principality 
shrank  once  more  to  the  banks  of  the  Conway.  In 
the  meantime  Griffith  with  his  young  son  Owen  was 
left  by  Henry  to  languish  in  the  Tower,  till,  filled  with 
despair,  he  made  a  bold  bid  for  freedom.  Weaving 
ropes  out  of  his  bed-clothing  he  let  himself  Death  of 
down  by  night  from  his  prison  window ;  Griffith, 
but,  being  a  corpulent  man,  his  weight  was  too  much 
for  such  slender  supports,  and  he  fell  from  a  great 
height  to  the  ground,  breaking  his  neck  upon  the 
spot. 

The  Welsh  were  greatly  exasperated  at  the  news, 
laying  the  death  of  their  favourite  most  naturally  at 
Henry's  door,  and  as  the  Marcher  barons  had  been 
encouraged  of  late  in  their  aggressions  and  tyrannies 
by  the  decline  of  Welsh  strength,  the  time  seemed 
ripe  for  another  general  rising.  Dafydd  now  came 
out  as  a  warrior  and  a  patriot  leader,  and  Wales  ral- 
lied to  his  standard.     He  was,  however,  so  appalled 


64  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

by  the  memory  of  the  awful  oaths  of  allegiance  he 
had  sworn  to  his  royal  uncle  and  the  vengeance  of 
Heaven  he  had  invited  in  case  of  their  non-observ- 
ance, that  he  sent  secretly  a  sum  of  money 
maklt  war  ^^  ^^^  Popc, — all  in  fact  he  could  scrape 
on  the  together, — begging   for   absolution.     His 

Holiness  granted  this  readily  enough  and 
professed  to  recognise  his  right  to  independence. 
But  Henry,  hearing  of  it,  and  disturbed  by  these 
manoeuvres  of  the  Vicar  of  God,  secretly  forwarded 
twice  the  amount  of  money  sent  by  Dafydd  to  the 
Pope,  who  thereupon  reversed  all  his  previous  de- 
cisions. We  do  not  hear  whether  the  Welsh  Prince 
got  his  money  back.  He  certainly  got  no  value  for 
it.  So  now  in  these  years  of  1244-45  war 
raged  once  more  throughout  Wales  and 
the  Marches,  and  Dafydd,  though  unendowed  with 
his  father's  warlike  talents,  nevertheless  by  his  pa- 
triotic action  regained  the  affection  of  his  people. 
Henry  was  busy  in  Scotland  and  it  was  nearly  a  year 
before  he  could  get  to  Wales  in  person  ;  when  he  did, 
he  pushed  his  way,  with  only  one  brisk  fight,  to  that 
time-honoured  barrier,  the  Conway  estuary,  and  sat 
down  with  a  large  army  of  English  and  Gascons  on 
the  green  pastures  around  Deganwy  Castle,  where  he 
gazed  with  inevitable  helplessness  at  the  Welsh 
forces  crowding  on  the  marsh  across  the  river, 
or  lining  the  outer  ramparts  of  Snowdonia  that 
Henry  III.  frown  behind  it.  The  troubles  of  King 
in  Wales.  John,  and  even  worse,  befell  his  son. 
Matthew  of  Paris  has  preserved  for  us  a  *'  letter  from 
the  front "  written  by  a  knight,  who  gives  a  graphic 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  65 

description  of  the  sufferings  of  the  army,  not  for- 
getting himself  in  the  narration  of  them.  Cold, 
sickness,  and  hunger  were  their  lot,  varied  by  fierce 
skirmishes  with  the  Welsh  and  desperate  fights  over 
the  English  provision  boats,  which  made  their  way 
from  Chester  round  the  Orme's  Head  into  the  Con- 
way. Aber  Conway  Abbey  was  ruthlessly  sacked 
by  the  English  soldiery,  much  to  the  regret,  it  should 
be  said,  of  our  "  special  correspondent  "  and  greatly 
to  the  rage  of  the  Welsh,  who  in  revenge  slaughtered 
every  wounded  Englishman  they  could  lay  hands  on. 

No  definite  result  accrued  from  this  war.  Dafydd 
died  a  few  months  after  this  amid  the  regrets  of  his 
people,  whose  affection  had  been  secured  by  his  later 
deeds.  He  had  atoned  for  his  former  pusillanimity 
by  the  stubborn  resistance  which  marked  the  close  of 
his  Hfe.  His  death  made  way  for  the  last  and,  to 
Englishmen,  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the  long  line 
of  Welsh  Princes. 

Dafydd  left  no  heir.  Strictly  speaking,  his  legal 
successor  was  a  Norman,  Sir  Ralph  Mortimer,  who 
had  married  Gwladys,  a  legitimate  daughter  of 
Llewelyn.  Such  a  successor  was  of  course  out  of  the 
question,  and,  as  Henry  abstained  from  all  interfer- 
ence, the  nobles  of  North  Wales  naturally  fell  back 
on  the  illegitimate  branch,  that  of  Grififith,  who 
perished  in  the  moat  of  the  Tower  of  London.  This 
unfortunate  Prince,  whose  body  was  about  this  time 
removed  to  Conway  and  buried  with  great  pomp, 
had  three  sons,  Llewelyn,  Owen,  and  Dafydd.  It 
would  seem  as  if  all  past  experiences  were  lost  upon 
the   nobles  of  Gwynedd,  since  they  were  fatuous 


66  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

enough  to  appoint  the  two  elder  of  these  Princes  to 

the  joint  rulership  of  their  province.    The  partnership 

survived  an  English  invasion  which  Henry 
Sons  of  **  -^ 

Griffith  made  on  hearing  that   the   chieftains  of 

j*o^infr"uTet*°  South  Walcs  wcre  calling  on  the  new 
ship  of  Princes  of  Gwynedd  to  aid  them,  in  the  be- 

N.  Wales.  jj^£  ^j^^^  ^  diversion  would  be  opportune. 
Once  more  the  English  appeared  on  the  Conway. 
As  usual,  the  Welsh  with  their  stock  and  movables 
had  slipped  over  the  river  into  the  impregnable 
wilds  of  Snowdonia,  and  the  King  returned  as 
Henry  III.  ^^  wcnt,  burning  St.  Asaph's  Cathedral 
again  in         on  his  march.     There  was  now  peace  in 

Wales  for  some  years ;  a  lull,  as  it  were,  be- 
fore the  great  conflict  that  was  to  be  the  end  of  all 
things.  But  peace  and  plenty,  in  the  words  of  the 
chronicler,  "•  begat  war."  For  want  of  enemies  the 
two  brothers  turned  their  arms  against  each  other. 
Owen,  the  younger,  was  the  aggressor  in  this  instance, 
and  he  justly  suffered  for  it,  being  overcome  by 
Llewelyn  and  immured  for  the  rest  of  his  life  in  the 
lonely  castle  of  Dolbadarn,  whose  ivy-mantled  shell 
still  stands  by  the  Llanberis  lakes. 

Dafydd,  the  third  brother,  had  supported  Owen, 
and  he,  too,  was  seized  and  securely  confined.  Llew- 
Lieweiyn  III.  ^ty"»  ^^^  Supreme  in  North  Wales,  be- 
(orap  comes    the    outstanding    figure    around 

which  the  closing  scene  of  the  long  and 
heroic  resistance  of  the  Welsh  henceforth  gathers. 
South  Wales  was  in  a  distracted  state.  The  Lord 
Marchers  and  the  King's  Bailiffs,  backed  by  English 
support,  had  taken  fresh  heart  from  Welsh  dissensions 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  67 

and  were  pressing  hardly  on  those  native  chieftains 
who  did  not  side  with  them.  Every  chieftain  and 
noble  in  Wales  whose  patriotism  had  not  been  tamp- 
ered with  now  took  up  arms.  Llewelyn  was  uni- 
versally recognised  as  the  national  leader,  and  the 
years  1257-58  were  one  long  turmoil  of 
war  and  battle  in  every  part  of  Wales. 
Llewelyn  had  cleared  off  all  recent  aggression,  fallen 
with  heavy  hand  on  the  old  settled  barons,  and  smit- 
ten the  traitors  among  his  fellow-countrymen  hip 
and  thigh.  A  battle  was  fought  on  the  Towy,  which 
some  chroniclers  say  was  the  bloodiest  ever  engaged 
in  between  Welsh  and  English,  to  the  worsting  of 
the  latter  and  the  loss  of  two  thousand  men. 

The  Perfeddwlad  had  been  granted  to  Prince  Ed- 
ward, then  Earl  of  Chester.  His  agents  there  had 
distinguished  themselves,  even  in  those  j^.  Henry 
cruel  times,  for  intolerable  oppression.  attacks 
Llewelyn  in  his  vengeance  swept  Ed-  ^^^  ^"' 
ward's  new  property  bare  from  the  Conway  to  the 
Dee.  The  future  conqueror  and  organiser  of  Wales 
was  at  this  moment  hardly  pressed.  His  Welsh 
friends,  like  the  then  Prince  of  Powys,  were  heavily 
punished  by  Llewelyn  and  their  lands  laid  waste. 
Edward  sent  to  Ireland  for  succour,  but  the  Irish 
ships  were  met  at  sea  by  those  of  Llewelyn  and 
driven  back.  Henry  now  returned  to  his  son's 
assistance,  and,  drawing  together  "  the  whole  strength 
of  England  from  St.  Michael's  Mount  to  the  river 
Tweed,"  executed  the  familiar  promenade  across  the 
wasted  Perfeddwlad,  and  experienced  the  familiar 
sense  of  impotence  upon  the  Conway  with  its  well 


68  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

defended  forts  and  frowning  mountains  alive  with 
agile  spearmen. 

Once  again  the  tide  of  battle  rolled  back  to  the 
English  border,  and  the  first  serious  punishment  we 
hear  of  the  Welsh  receiving  curiously  enough  was  at 
the  hands  of  some  German  cavalry  imported  and  led 
by  Lord  Audley,  whose  large  horses  seem  to  have 
struck  some  terror  into  the  mountaineers.  But  this 
is  a  detail.  Llewelyn  may  almost  be  said  to  have  re- 
peated the  exploits  of  his  grandfather  and  recon- 
quered Wales.  Even  Flemish  Pembroke  had  been 
forced  to  its  knees.  His  followers  to  the  number  of 
ten  thousand  had  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  die 
rather  than  submit,  and  these,  being  picked  men  and 
inured  to  war,  were  a  formidable  nucleus  for  the 
fighting  strength  of  Wales  to  rally  round.  The  re- 
volt, too,  of  Simon  de  Montfort  against  Henry  was  all 
in  favour  of  Llewelyn,  who  took  the  former's  part 
and  was  able  to  render  him  considerable  personal 
service  in  the  decline  of  his  success. 

Through  many  years  of   intermittent  strife   and 

varying  fortunes  the  balance  of  power  remained  with 

Llewelyn,  till  in  1267  a  peace  was  made 

eiynmakeT'    ^^  Shrewsbury  very  greatly  in  his  favour. 

peace  and  is    By  this  agreement  Henry  in  consideration 

recognised  by      .  .  i       -        i      ^ 

Henry  as  ^t  a  sum  of  moncy  undertook  to  recog- 
princeofaii    j^ise  Llewclyn  as  Prince  of  all  Wales  and 

Wales. 

entitled  to  receive  homage  and  fealty 
from  every  prince  and  noble  in  the  country  save  the 
sadly  shorn  representatives  of  the  old  line  of  Deheu- 
barth.  But  after  two  years'  enjoyment  of  this  con- 
tract the  King's  death  and  the  succession  of  the 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  69 

strenuous  Prince  Edward  threw  everything  once 
more  into  confusion. 

It  is  true  that  Edward,  who  was  in  the  Holy  Land 
fighting  Turks,  took  two  years  in  finding  his  way 
home.     But  when  he  did  so,  in  1274,  and       Liewei 
was  crowned  King  he  threw  his  father's    and  Edward 
treaty  with  Llewelyn  to   the  winds  ;  an  ''  "^^' 

action  for  which,  it  is  true,  the  latter  gave  him  some 
excuse  by  refusing  to  attend  at  his  coronation,  not 
from  recusancy,  but  from  a  well-grounded  fear  that 
his  life  would  not  be  safe  from  certain  Anglo-Norman 
nobles  whose  territory  he  would  have  to  pass  through. 

Now  comes  a  passage  in  Llewelyn's  stormy  life 
that  his  admirers  would  fain  forget,  since  it  records 
how  for  love  of  a  woman  he  reversed  the  indomit- 
able front  he  had  hitherto  shown  to  the  invading 
English,  and  submitted  almost  without  a  blow  to 
the  dictation  of  the  returned  Crusader,  whom  he  had 
so  often  beaten  of  old  in  the  Welsh  Marches.  It 
was  perhaps  the  memory  of  these  former  rebuffs  that 
made  the  proud  and  warlike  Edward  so  vindictive 
towards  Llewelyn.  A  weapon,  too,  was  at  this  mo- 
ment placed  in  his  hands  which  was  to  assist  him 
in  a  manner  he  had  not  dreamed  of.  The  young 
daughter  of  the  late  Simon  de  Montfort,  to  whom 
the  Welsh  Prince  was  betrothed  and  whom  Llewelyn's 
he  is  said  to  have  deeply  loved,  was  sail-       betrothed 

wife  seized 

ing  from  France  to  become  his  bride.     In  by  the 

anxiety  to  escape  the  English,  the  ship  English. 
that  bore  her  unluckily  ran  among  some  Bristol  ves- 
sels  off    the    Scilly    Islands.     The    captains   seized 


JO  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

the  prospective  bride  and  carried  her  at  once  to 
Edward,  who  was  on  the  point  of  invading  Wales 
with  two  armies.  Four  years  of  peace  had  doubt- 
less weakened  the  strong  Welsh  league  that  had 
worked  such  wonders  against  Henry  III.  Numbers 
of  his  old  friends  at  any  rate  failed  to  respond  to 
Llewelyn's  call.  The  Prince  had  now  before  him 
the  alternatives  of  immediate  union  with  his  be- 
trothed, or  of  war  and  chaos  with  a  lukewarm  or 
hostile  South  Wales  and  certainly  a  hostile  Powys 
added  to  the  power  of  England. 

After  being  cooped  up  for  some  weeks  in  the 
Snowdon  mountains  by  the  royal  army,  Llewelyn 
signed  at  length  a  treaty  with  Edward,  the  con- 
ditions of  which  were  as  humiliating  as  if  he  had 
been  crushed  to  the  earth  by  a  series  of  disastrous 
battles,  whereas  he  was  in  truth  the  still  recognised 
suzerain  of  all  Wales.  To  put  the  case,  or  the  gist  of 
it,  briefly :  all  Wales  except  the  Snowdon  lordships 
(the  present  Carnarvonshire)  was  to  revert  absolutely 
to  the  King  of  England,  Welsh  and  alien  lords  alike 
becoming  his  tenants.  Even  Anglesey  was  to  revert 
to  the  Crown  in  the  event  of  Llewelyn's  dying  with- 
out issue.  Nothing  was  to  be  left  of  Welsh  inde- 
pendence but  the  "  cantrefs,"  or  lordships, 
makls  p^ace  Constituting  Snowdonia ;  and  over  this 
with  Ed-       remnant    Llewelyn's    heirs    were    to    be 

ward  I.  .  .  .  , 

graciously  permitted  to  reign  in  peace. 
The  Prince's  passion  had  proved  greater  than  his 
patriotism ;  the  treaty  was  signed  at  Conway,  and 
King  Edward,  who  had  advanced  unopposed  to 
Cardiganshire,  withdrew  his  troops. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  yi 

"  The  force  of  love,"  says  the  chronicler,  groaning 
over  this  depressing  episode,  "does  indeed  work 
wonders."  Llewelyn,  not  long  afterwards,  Lieweiyn's 
was  married  in  great  pomp  at  Worcester  marriage, 
in  presence  of  the  whole  Court  of  England,  the 
King  himself  giving  the  bride  away,  and  the  late 
ruler  of  all  Wales  and  now  lord  merely  of  Snow- 
donia,  with  a  life  interest  in  Anglesey,  retired  to  the 
obscurity  of  his  contracted  honours.  Here,  amid 
the  Carnarvon  mountains,  he  began  ere  long  to  feel 
the  prickings  of  conscience,  and  remorse  for  the 
weak  part  he  had  played. 

Edward,  too,  kept  open  the  wound  by  frequently 
summoning  him  to  this  place  or  that  on  various 
pleas,  and  the  Welsh  Prince,  dreading  treachery  and 
remembering  his  father,  Griffith's,  fate,  as  constantly 
refused  to  go  without  a  guaranty  of  safety.  The 
greater  part  of  the  present  counties  of  Carmarthen 
and  Cardigan  were  already  King's  ground.  As 
forming  part  of  the  old  Principality  of  South  Wales, 
and  therefore  not  Marcher  property,  they  had  come 
to  Edward.  A  county  court  had  before  this  been 
established  at  Carmarthen,  and  efforts  to  make 
this  territory  shire  ground  had  been  feebly  made,  but 
they  were  now  vigorously  renewed,  and  the  Perfedd- 
wlad  was  treated  in  savage  fashion.  Ferocity  was  the 
distinguishing  mark  of  all  the  servants  of  Edward  I. 

From  every  part  of  Wales  came  the  cry  of  despair- 
ing Welshmen  ground  to  powder  by  the  crueit  of  Ed- 
insensate  tyrannies  of  the  King's  Bailiffs  ward's  govem- 
and  the  Lord  Marchers,  now  left  entirely  "^*"  '  "  '* 
to  their  own  wild  wills.     Llewelyn's  third  brother, 


72  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

Dafydd,  who  had  played  the  part  of  King's  friend 
and  traitor  to  his  own  people  for  most  of  his 
life,  was  rewarded  by  the  Barony  of  Denbigh.  It 
was  the  year  1281  and  the  time  was  now  ripe  for  the 
last  scene  of  the  last  act  in  this  long,  sanguinary 
struggle.  Many  of  the  chieftains  of  Wales,  thinking, 
as  they  had  often  thought  before,  that  death  was 
preferable  to  the  intolerable  oppression  from  which 
the  country  now  suffered,  approached  Dafydd  at 
Denbigh  and  assured  him  that  if  he  would  even  thus 
tardily  be  reconciled  to  his  brother  Llewelyn  and 
lead  them,  they  would  strike  yet  one  more  blow  for 
Dafydd  turns  freedom.  Dafydd,  probably  with  their 
patriot.  knowledge,    was    smarting    under    some 

real  or  fancied  slight  from  his  patron.  King  Ed- 
ward, though  maybe  his  heart  was  really  touched 
at  the  extreme  sufferings  of  his  countrymen.  At 
any  rate  he  played  the  man  to  an  extent  that  more 
than  atoned  for  his  unworthy  past.  Dafydd  and  his 
brother  Llewelyn  now  met  at  the  former's  castle 
upon  the  high  rock  of  Denbigh,  and  there  the  Welsh 
chieftains  who  had  declared  for  death  or  freedom 
rallied  to  the  standard  raised  by  the  grandsons  of 
Llewelyn  and  Llewelyn  the  Great,  and  held  upon  "the 
Dafydd  unite  craggy  hill  in  Rhos"  the  last  formal  coun- 

for  resistance.         °°''    , 

cil  of  either  peace  or  war  that  was  to  be 
recorded  in  the  pages  of  Welsh  history.  The  news 
of  the  proposed  rising  had  reached  England  before 
Llewelyn  had  left  his  palace  at  Aber,  and  had  caused 
some  consternation.  Edward  and  his  barons  had  re- 
garded the  Welsh  question  as  settled,  and  thought 
that  on  the  death  of  the  now  pacified  and  uxorious 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  73 

Llewelyn  the  last  vestige  of  independence  would 
quietly  lapse.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was 
greatly  distressed.  He  sent  word  to  Llewelyn  that  he 
was  coming  to  see  him  for  the  love  he  bore  to  Wales, 
and  without  the  King's  knowledge  ;  and  he  then,  in 
actual  fact,  travelled  all  the  way  to  Aber  and  used 
every  argument,  persuasive  and  coercive,  he  could 
think  of  to  turn  the  Welsh  Prince  from  what  seemed 
a  mad  and  hopeless  enterprise.  He  threatened  him 
with  the  whole  physical  power  of  England,  the  whole 
spiritual  power  of  Rome.  Never  did  the  last  Llew- 
elyn, or  indeed  any  Llewelyn,  show  a  nobler  front 
than  on  this  occasion.  For  himself,  he  was  materi- 
ally well  provided  for  and  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
persecution  that  pressed  upon  most  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen.  But  they  had  called  to  him  in  their 
despair,  and  desperate  as  the  risk  might  be  he  had 
resolved  to  stand  or  fall  with  them.  A  schedule  of 
conditions  was  sent  him  from  the  English  King  and 
his  council,  under  which  everything  was  to  be  over- 
looked, if  only  he  and  his  people  would  return  to 
their  allegiance.  Among  other  things  an  English 
county,  with  a  pension  of  ;£'iooo  a  year,  Lieweiynre- 
was  offered  him  in  lieu  of  Snowdon.J'^^^^*"*^'"™^- 
Llewelyn  replied  with  scorn  that  he  wanted  no 
English  county,  that  his  patrimony  was  lawfully  his 
own  by  virtue  of  a  long  line  of  ancestors ;  that  even 
if  he  himself  were  base  enough  to  yield  up  the  Snow- 
don  lordships,  his  subjects  there  would  never  submit 
to  a  rule  that  was  hateful  to  them  and  had  brought 
such  misery  on  their  neighbours  of  the  Perfeddwlad. 
It  was  better,  he  declared,  to  die  with  honour  than  to 


74  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

live  in  sla^-ery  ;  and  it  may  perhaps  be  repeated  to 
his  advantage  that  Llewelyn  himself  was  only  a  suf- 
ferer so  far  as  his  proper  pride  was  concerned,  though 
it  is  possible  he  felt  some  pricks  of  conscience  about 
the  concessions  made  two  years  previously.  At 
any  rate  he  nobly  atoned  for  them.  There  is  evi- 
outsidesym-  d^nce  that  admiration  for  the  gallant 
pathyfor       stand  made  by  this  remnant  of  the  Welsh 

Wales.  .  . 

was  being  kindled  not  only  across  the  seas 
but  even  among  EngHshmen  themselves.  "  Even 
Englishmen  and  foreigners,"  says  Matthew  of  Paris, 
who  was  assuredly  no  Welshman,  "  were  touched 
with  pity  and  admiration." 

Prince  Dafydd,  who  was  offered  his  pardon  on  con- 
dition of  immediately  repairing  to  the  Holy  Land, 
Dafydd  rejects^^^  equally  stubbom,  though  perhaps  the 
Edward's  temptation  to  be  otherwise  was  not  so 
terms.  ^x^2X.     He  replied  to  the  effect  that  he 

had  no  intention  of  undertaking  a  Crusade  at  the 
dictates  of  others.  However  admirable  was  this  tardy 
patriotism,  his  past  record  from  that  point  of  view 
was  wholly  dishonourable,  for  he  had  been  consist- 
ently a  King's  man.  On  the  other  hand,  if,  as  was 
possibly  the  case  with  many  Welsh  nobles,  he  had 
sincerely  believed  that  submission  to  English  rule 
was  the  wisest  thing  for  Welshmen,  his  abrupt  re- 
pudiation of  the  man  whose  favours  he  had  sought 
and  received  is  not  readily  excusable.  In  this  direc- 
tion it  is  urged  that  the  Anglo-Norman  garrisons  in 
these  first  years  of  Edward's  reign  had  made  life  so 
intolerable  that  Dafydd  was  sufficiently  touched  by 
his  countrymen's  sufferings  to  risk  everything  and 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  75 

join  his  gallant  brother  in  so  forlorn  a  hope.  "  It 
was  better  for  the  kingdom  at  large  that  Wales 
should  be  governed,"  wrote  the  brothers  to  Edward, 
"by  her  own  Princes,  paying  that  homage  to  the 
King  of  England  which  they  had  never  refused, 
than  by  greedy  strangers  whose  only  thought  was 
to  oppress  her  people,  despoil  her  churches,  and 
advance  their  own  private  interests." 

The  fall  of  the  curtain  upon  this  remnant  of 
Welsh  independence  was  now  but  a  matter  of  a  few 
months.  Edward's  answer  to  the  Princes  was  the 
despatch  of  a  fleet  to  Anglesey,  and  of  an  army 
along  the  north  coast  route,  containing  large  num- 
bers of  Gascons,  and  even  some  Spaniards.  Edward 
himself  went  as  far  as  Conway,  meeting  on  the  way 
with  a  heavy  repulse  and  considerable  loss  in  what 
was  soon  to  be  Flintshire.  Dafydd,  who  was  com- 
manding in  the  north,  was  pushed  into  Snowdonia. 
The  English  army  in  Anglesey  bridged  the  Menai 
with  boats,  and  a  strong  detachment,  crossing  before 
the  connection  was  complete,  encount-  pj  htingon 
ered  the  Welsh  near  Bangor.  The  invad-  the  Menai 
ers,  however,  were  all  cut  off  and  slain  in 
a  fierce  battle  fought  upon  the  shore,  among  them 
being  many  barons,  knights,  and  squires. 

These  successes  could  only  delay  the  end  and  ex- 
asperate the  inevitable  conquerors.  Llewelyn,  not 
wishing  to  be  starved  into  surrender  among  the 
Snowdon  mountains,  had  gone  south  to  rouse  the 
new  shire  land  of  Cardigan  and  Carmarthen,  and 
the  warlike  Radnor  tenants  of  the  Mortimers.  The 
Earl  of  Gloucester  with  another  English  army  had 


76  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

itieanwhile  penetrated  into  South  Wales  and  de- 
feated a  large  force  of  Welsh  patriots  at  Llandilo  in 
the  valley  of  the  Towy. 

Llewelyn  came  up,  fighting  his  way  through  Car- 
diganshire, and  had  reached  Builth  on  the  Wye, 
Death  of  when,  on  December  i  ith,  he  met  his  fate, 
the  last  The  story  of  his  death  is  too  much  con- 
Lieweiyn.  f^ged,  and  there  is  no  space  here  for  re- 
peating the  slightly  varying  versions  of  the  tragedy, 
but  it  seems  quite  clear  that  he  was  tempted  away 
from  the  main  body  of  his  army  by  treachery,  and 
slain  when  he  was  without  arms  in  his  hands.  His 
head  was  struck  off  and  despatched  at  once  to  King 
Edward  at  Conway,  who,  receiving  it  with  great  joy, 
sent  it  immediately  by  sea  to  his  army  in  Anglesey. 
Thence  the  gruesome  trophy  was  forwarded  to  Lon- 
don, where  crowds  of  people  met  it  outside  the  city 
and  placed  upon  the  gory  brows  a  wreath  of  ivy  in 
mockery  of  the  old  Welsh  prophecy  that  a  Prince  of 
Llewelyn's  Welsh  blood  should  once  more  be  crowned 
head  carried  jj^  London.     It  was  then  fixed  upon  the 

through  ^ 

London  in  point  of  a  lancc  and  carried  in  triumph 
triumph.  through  the  streets  to  the  pillory,  and 
from  the  pillory  to  its  final  resting-place  above  the 
gate  of  the  Tower. 

Thus  perished  the  last  representative  of  the  long 
line  of  Welsh  Princes  that  may  be  said  to  have  had 
its  rise  with  the  sons  of  Cunedda  eight  centuries  be- 
fore. The  last  dim  spark  of  Welsh  independence 
flickered  feebly  for  a  few  weeks,  till  the  very  recesses 
of  Snowdonia,  for  almost  the  first  time  in  history, 
gave  back  their  echoes  to  the  blast  of  English  bugles, 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  77 

and  the  wild  passes  of  Nant  Francon  and  Llanberis 
felt  the  tramp  of  alien  feet.  Dafydd  found  himself 
alone,  a  hunted  outlaw  in  the  forests  of  the  Vale  of 
Clwyd.  He  was  soon  captured  and  taken  capture  and 
to  Shrewsbury,  where  a  Parliament  was  execution 
then  sitting.  Llewelyn's  remains  had  °  ^  y  • 
been  treated  with  doubtful  logic  and  poor  chivalry 
as  a  traitor.  What  treatment  he  would  have  met 
with  at  Edward's  hands  as  a  prisoner  we  cannot 
know.  But  Dafydd  could  expect  nothing  but  the 
worst  and  he  received  it.  He  was  tried  as  an  Eng- 
lish baron  at  Shrewsbury  and  sentenced  to  be  quart- 
ered, disembowelled,  and  beheaded.  His  quarters 
were  distributed  among  four  English  cities,  Winches- 
ter and  York,  it  is  said,  quarrelling  for  the  honour  of 
his  right  shoulder,  while  his  head  was  sent  to  moulder 
by  his  brother's  over  the  gateway  of  the  Tower  of 
London.  A  story  runs  that  while  his  entrails  were 
being  burned  his  heart  leaped  from  the  flames  and 
struck  the  executioner  who  was  feeding  them. 

All  resistance  worthy  of  mention  was  now  over  in 
Wales.     The  six  centuries  or  thereabouts  of  its  his- 
tory as  a  separate  nation  in  whole  or  in 
part  had  closed.     A  new  epoch  was  to         Edward 
open,  and  Edward  was  the  man  to  mark     ""'''^  *^* 

•••         '  ne'w  govern- 

the  division  between  the  past   and   the  mentof 

future   in    emphatic    fashion.      Hitherto,  waies. 

though  statesmanlike  in  his  views,  he  had  been  in 
actual  deed  both  cruel  and  unjust  to  Wales,  and 
allowed  his  agents  to  be  still  more  so ;  but  now 
that  resistance  was  crushed  he  dropped  the  war- 
rior and  tyrant  and  showed  himself  the  statesman 


yS  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

that  he  was.  Most  of  the  Welshmen  that  had  re- 
mained in  arms  received  their  pardons,  though  a 
few  took  service  abroad.  The  King  exacted  no  san- 
guinary vengeance,  but  followed,  rather,  the  more 
merciful  and  practical  course  of  providing  against 
the  chance  of  his  Welsh  subjects  requiring  it  in 
future.  He  went  to  Wales  with  his  Court  and  re- 
mained there  for  nearly  three  years.  He  made 
Rhuddlan  his  principal  headquarters,  rebuilding  its 
ancient  castle ;  and  at  Conway,  Harlech,  and  Car- 
narvon, besides  some  less  formidable  fortresses,  he 
left  those  masterpieces  of  defensive  construction 
that  have  been  the  admiration  of  all  subsequent 
ages.  From  Rhuddlan  in  due  course  he  issued 
The  statutes  the  famous  statutes  called  by  its  name, 
of  Rhuddlan.  ^hich  proclaimed  at  once  the  death-knell 
of  Old  Wales  and  the  fact  of  its  territorial  fusion 
with  the  realm  of  England.  The  details  of  the  set- 
tlement were  laborious,  and  the  spectacle  of  an  Eng- 
lish Court  spending  in  all  nearly  three  busy  years  in 
Wales  is  evidence  of  the  thoroughness  with  which 
Edward  did  his  work. 

It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  with  the  exception 
of  modern  Denbighshire,  which  was  left  in  lordships, 
Edward  carved  North  Wales  into  the  present  count- 
ies of  Flint,  Anglesey,  Carnarvon,  and  Merioneth. 
Powys  and  South  Wales  being  honeycombed  with 
Anglo-Norman  lordships  and  reconciled  Welsh  chief- 
tains, he  shrank  probably  from  disentangling  a  con- 
fusion that  brought  no  particular  danger  to  himself, 
and  from  a  course  that  would  have  embroiled  him 
with  the  whole  feudal  interest  of  the  Marches. 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  79 

The  still  mainly  Welsh  districts,  however,  of  Car- 
digan and  Carmarthen,  he  had  already,  as  we  have 
seen,  formed  into  counties.  They  were  now,  like 
those  of  the  North,  to  be  governed  by  lieuten- 
ants, sheriffs,  and  justices,  and  in  all  things  to  re- 
semble English  counties,  except  in  the  privilege  of 
sending  representatives  to  Parliament.  Wales  was 
kept  separate  from  England,  however,  in  so  far  as 
its  immediate  feudal  lord  was  not  the  King  of  Eng- 
land, but  the  King's  eldest  son  ;  and  the  Principality 
of  Wales  at  this  time,  it  must  be  remembered,  meant 
only  the  royal  counties. 

Edward's  laws  for  the  conquered  country  were 
just  and  his  intention  not  ungenerous.  He  reduced 
the  rentals  hitherto  due  to  the  Welsh  Edward's in- 
Princes  and  listened  patiently  to  the  griev-  Mentions  just, 
ances  of  the  people.  He  enacted  that  both  in  count- 
ies and  lordships  the  old  Welsh  laws  should  be  those 
of  the  Welsh  so  far  as  possible,  and  that  justice 
should  be  administered  in  both  languages,  and  he 
sent  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  on  a  long  visit- 
ation to  take  note  of  the  destruction  to  churches 
perpetrated  during  the  recent  wars,  and  to  arrange 
for  their  repair. 

He  was  severe  on  the  bards,  it  is  true,  but  he  did 
not  slaughter  them,  as  an  old  fiction  asserts.  Their 
wandering  avocations  were  sternly  repressed,  and 
with  the  business  that  he  had  in  hand  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  what  other  course  he  could  have  taken  with 
men  whose  trade  then  chiefly  consisted  in  recall- 
ing the  wrongs  of  Wales  and  urging  revenge.  The 
whole  business  was  concluded  by  a  great  tournament 


8o  Owen  Glyndwr  [400- 

at  Nevin,  on  the  Carnarvon  coast,  which  was  attended 
by  the  flower  of  Welsh,  Engh'sh,  and  Gascon  chivalry. 
When  the  King  returned  to  London  after  his  long 
absence,  he  went  with  splendid  ceremonial  and  a 
The  King's  ^^^^  proccssion  to  the  Tower  and  to  West- 
returnto  minster  Abbey,  causing  the  regalia  of  the 
exterminated  Welsh  Princes  and  the  skull 
of  St.  David  to  be  borne  before  him.  Nor  must  one 
omit  mention  of  the  immortal  but  grim  joke  which 
tradition  says  that  he  played  upon  the  Welsh  nobil- 
ity before  leaving  the  country.  For  does  not  every 
schoolboy  know  how,  having  promised  them  a  Prince 
who  was  born  in  Wales  and  could  speak  no  English, 
he  sent  Queen  Eleanor  to  Carnarvon  for  the  birth 
of  Edward  the  Second  ? 

A  good  deal  can  be  said  of  the  century  that 
was  to  elapse  before  our  story  opens,  but  not  much 
that  is  of  vital  import.  In  1295,  thirteen 
years  after  the  conquest,  Madoc  ap  Mere- 
dith, a  connection  of  Llewelyn's,  made  a  last  at- 
tempt to  rouse  the  Welsh.  It  proved  abortive,  but 
was  serious  enough  to  stop  Edward  from  going  to 
France,  and  to  take  him  down  to  Conway,  where  it 
is  said  that  on  a  certain  occasion  a  high  tide  cut 
him  off  from  his  men,  and  nearly  delivered  him  into 
the  hands  of  the  insurgents. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  next  hund- 
red years  in  Wales  were  those  of  peace  and 

Wales 

through  the    prosperity.     But  by  comparison  with  the 
fourteenth      p^g^.  |.j^gy  might  not  untruly  be  called  so. 

century.  \  /         ,.      .  ,   ,  , 

No  serious  friction  occurred  between  the 
two  races;  while  the  long  wars  with  France  and 


1400]  Introductory  Sketch  8i 

constant  broils  with  Scotland  engrossed  the  at- 
tention of  the  Welsh  aristocracy,  both  Norman  and 
native.  Nor,  again,  was  it  only  the  nobles  and  gen- 
try that  found  respite  from  their  domestic  quarrels 
in  a  combined  activity  upon  the  unfortunate  soil  of 
France.  Welsh  soldiers  as  well  as  Welsh  gentlemen 
served  by  thousands  in  the  armies  of  England,  and 
few  people  remember  that  about  a  third  of  the  vic- 
torious army  at  Cressy  were  Welshmen.  This  long 
companionship  in  arms  and  partnership  in  almost 
unparallelled  glories  must  have  done  something  to 
lessen  the  instinctive  antipathy  with  which  the  two 
peoples  had  from  time  immemorial  regarded  each 
other.  Yet  how  much  of  the  ancient  enmity  sur- 
vived, only  requiring  some  spark  to  kindle  it,  will  be 
evident  enough  as  I  proceed  to  the  main  part  of 
my  story,  and  the  doings  of  the  indomitable  Welsh- 
man who  is  its  hero. 

6 


CHAPTER  II 

BIRTH   AND   EARLY   LIFE 

I 359-1 399 

" At  my  birth 

The  front  of  heaven  was  full  of  fiery  shapes  ; 
The  goats  ran  from  the  mountains,  and  the  herds 
Were  strangely  clamorous  to  the  frighted  fields. 
These  signs  have  marked  me  extraordinary, 
And  all  the  courses  of  my  life  do  show, 
I  am  not  in  the  roll  of  common  men." 

IN  these  famous  lines  the  Glyndwr  of  Shakespeare, 
though  not,  perhaps,  a  very  faithful  portrait  of 
the  true  Glyndwr,  tells  us  of  those  dread  portents 
which  heralded  his  birth.  Thus  far,  however,  tradi- 
tion rings  true  enough  in  the  lines  of  the  great  poet, 
and  is  even  shorn  of  some  of  the  most  fearsome  de- 
tails it  has  sent  down  to  us  through  various  channels. 
Shakespeare's  Glyndwr  might,  for  instance,  have  told 
us,  what  all  Welshmen  of  his  day  were  well  assured 
of,  that  on  that  memorable  night  the  horses  of 
Griffith  Vychan,  his  father,  were  found  standing  in 
their  stables  up  to  their  fetlocks  in  blood  ;  and  how 
he  himself,  while  still  an  infant  in  his  nurse's  arms, 
was  accustomed  to  greet  with  demonstrations  of  de- 
light the  sight  of  a  sword  or  spear  and  allow  those 

82 


1359-1399]        Birth  and  Early  Life  83 

around  him  no  peace  till  the  deadly  weapon  was 
placed  in  his  baby  hand. 

There  is  great  uncertainty  as  to  the  day,  and  some 
disagreement  as  to  the  exact  year,  wherein  old  earth 
thus  shook  in  labour  with  so  heroic  a  soul.  This 
divergency  of  opinion  extends  over  the  period  of  ten 
years,  from  1349  to  1359.  The  evidence  that  seems 
to  give  the  latter  date  unquestionable  preference  will 
be  alluded  to  shortly.  In  any  case  the  point  to  be 
noted  is  that  the  hero  of  this  story,  judged  by  the 
standard  of  his  time,  was  quite  advanced  in  life  when 
he  began  the  long  and  arduous  undertaking  that  has 
made  his  name  immortal,  and  cherished  by  his 
countrymen  as  the  most  famous  of  all  names  in  their 
history.  For  there  is  no  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  if 
the  Welsh  people  were  polled  upon  the  subject, 
Owen  Glyndwr  would  stand,  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  national  heroes. 
Whether  rightly  or  wrongly  he  holds  the  first  place 
among  Welsh  warrior  patriots  in  the  affections  of 
his  countrymen. 

It  was  the  fortune,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  make 
plain  in  the  introductory  chapter,  of  a  long  succes- 
sion of  Welsh  chieftains,  to  find  themselves  at  the 
head  of  a  people  struggling  desperately  against  con- 
quest and  absorption.  It  is  no  wonder  that  with  such 
opportunities  ever  present,  century  after  century, 
the  list  of  those  who  seized  them  and  won  distinction 
and  some  measure  of  success,  and  thereby  preserved 
their  names  to  posterity,  is  no  short  one.  It  is  not 
to  the  point  that  the  field  of  their  exploits  was  a 
small  one,  and  the  people  who  cherish  their  memory 


84  Owen  Glyndwr  1359- 

a  small  people, — so  much  more,  rather,  the  honour, 
seeing  the  odds  against  which  they  contended  with 
such  rare  tenacity ;  nor,  again,  is  it  to  their  discredit 
that  English  historians  have  done  as  a  rule  scant 
justice  to  the  vigour  of  the  old  Welsh  warriors. 
"  Good  wine  needs  no  bush."  The  surface  and  the 
tongue  of  Wales  to-day  are  sufificient  evidence  to  the 
vitality  of  its  people  and  their  martial  prowess  in 
the  days  of  old.  Their  heroes  have  happily  too  long 
been  dust  to  suffer  in  reputation  at  the  hands  of  the 
modern  destroyer  of  historic  ideals.  But  above  them 
all,  this  last  and  most  recent  of  patriots,  Owen  ap 
Griffith  Vychan  of  Glyndyfrdwy,  distinctly  towers. 
Precisely  why  this  should  be  is  not  readily  explicable, 
and  to  very  many  educated  Welshmen  the  fact  is 
not  acceptable.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  advance 
here  any  reasons  or  theories  for  the  particular  prefer- 
ence accorded  to  Glyndwr.  Whether  worthy  or  not, 
the  fame  is  his,  and  though,  curiously  enough,  un- 
commemorated  in  marble,  stone,  or  brass,  and  re- 
corded by  the  poet  and  historian  in  a  fragmentary 
and  disconnected  fashion,  it  is  fame  that  seems  to 
grow  no  dimmer  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Genealogy 
has  charms  for  few  people,  and  Welsh  genealogy,  to 
the  Saxon  who  has  not  served  some  kind  of  appren- 
ticeship to  it,  is  notoriously  formidable.  But  there 
will  be  Welsh  readers  of  an  assuredly  more  sympa- 
thetic turn  of  mind  who,  not  having  at  their  fingers' 
ends,  perhaps,  the  details  of  the  national  hero's 
origin,  will  be  not  ungrateful  for  them. 

Owen   of   Glyndyfrdwy,  commonly  called    Owen 
\  Glyndwr,  came  of  the  princely  house  of  Powys,  and 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  85 

was  a  direct  descendant  in  the  male  line  of  the  cele- 
brated Bleddyn  ap  Cynvyn,  Prince  of  Powys,  and 
for  a  short  time  of  Gwynedd  also,  whose  reign  al- 
most exactly  covered  the  period  of  the  Norman 
conquest  of  England.  The  second  in  descent  from 
Bleddyn  was  the  last  Prince  of  United  Powys, 
and  this  was  Madoc  ap  Meredith,  who  died  in  11 59. 
Readers  of  the  introductory  chapter  will  remember 
that  Powys,  between  the  upper  millstone  of  Norman 
power  and  the  nether  one  of  North  Welsh  patriotism, 
began  to  temporise  and  give  way  long  before  the 
Edwardian  conquest.  Its  Princes  would  have  been 
more  than  mortal  if  their  politics  had  not  been  of 
an  unsteady  kind.  They  frankly  accepted  the  Nor- 
man as  "  Emperor  in  London "  somewhat  early, 
thus  accepting  the  inevitable,  but  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  when  Welsh  affairs  were  prospering 
to  break  away  to  the  national  side.  While  gaining 
at  this  cost  some  immunity  from  Norman  greed  and 
a  measure  of  semi-independence,  the  Powys  Princes 
were  not  wholly  trusted  by  either  party,  and  some- 
times felt  the  vengeance  of  both.  In  11 59  Powys- 
land  fell  in  half ;  Powys  Uchaf,  or,  roughly  speaking, 
Montgomeryshire,  being  given  to  Madoc's  famous 
nephew,  Owen  Cyfeiliog,  warrior,  poet,  founder  of 
Strata  Marcella  Abbey,  and  author  of  The  Hirlds 
Horn  ;  Lower  Powys,  or  Powys  Fadog,  the  country 
of  the  Dee  and  Ceiriog,  fell  to  Madoc's  son,  Griffith 
ap  Madoc.  This  last  was  followed  by  another 
Madoc,  who  in  1200  founded  the  splendid  Abbey  of 
Valle  Crucis,  whose  ruins,  standing  as  they  do  in  the 
loveliest  nook  of  the  Vale  of  Llangollen,  are  justly 


/ 


86  Owen  Glyndwr  1359- 

celebrated  as  presenting  one  of  the  most  exquisite 
pictures  of  the  kind  in  Britain.  Beneath  its  grass- 
grown  aisles  lies  the  dust  of  the  chieftain  of  this 
line  of  Powys.  To  a  height  of  eight  hundred  feet 
above  its  crumbled  walls  and  gables,  still  graceful  in 
their  decay,  springs  an  isolated  cone-shaped  hill,  on 
whose  sharp  crown  stands  a  pile  of  ragged,  splint- 
ered ruins  placed  in  weird,  suggestive  fashion  against 
a  background  of  sky.  This  is  Dinas  Bran,  the  most 
proudly  perched  mediaeval  fortress  in  Wales,  perhaps 
in  all  Britain.  Here  in  this  eagle's  nest,  swung  be- 
twixt earth  and  heaven,  lived  the  Princes  of  Powys 
Fadog;  and  no  more  fitting  refuge  could  be  im- 
agined for  men  who,  like  them,  had  sometimes  to 
look  eastward  for  their  foes  and  sometimes  to  the 
west.  /It  was  in  1270,  close  to  the  final  conquest, 
that  Madoc's  son  Griffith  died,  after  dividing  his  Hfe 
between  friendship  with  the  English  King  and 
repentant  alliances  with  his  own  race.  He  had 
married  Emma,  daughter  of  James,  Lord  Audley, 
who  had  done  great  service  for  Henry  HI.  against 
the  Welsh  with  a  body  of  German  cavalry.  The 
death  of  this  Griffith  ap  Madoc  is  the  last  event 
recorded  in  the  Welsh  Chronicle.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  monks  of  Conway  and  Ystradfflur,  who 
conjointly  compiled  it,  could  not  bring  themselves 
to  put  on  record  the  sad  events  of  the  next  twelve 
years,  the  last  years  of  Welsh  independence.  Grif- 
fith's son,  another  Madoc,  followed,  and  died  in 
seven  years,  leaving  two  young  sons,  and  dividing 
his  inheritance  between  them.  The  elder,  Llew- 
elyn, had    Dinas   Bran   with   Yale   and    Bromfield, 


HOLT  CASTLE. 

FROM  OLD  PRINT. 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  87 

while  Griffith  had  Chirk  and  the  territory  attached 
to  it.  The  orphan  boys,  their  father  having  been 
tenant  in  capite  of  Edward  the  First,  became  that 
monarch's  wards.  Edward,  as  was  customary,  handed 
them  over  to  the  guardianship  of  two  of  his  nobles, 
selecting  in  this  case  the  great  Marcher  barons,  War- 
ren and  Roger  Mortimer.  Trusteeships  were  not  in 
those  days,  even  under  favourable  conditions,  the 
thankless  and  unprofitable  affairs  they  are  now. 
Warren  had  Llewelyn  and  Dinas  Bran  ;  Roger  Morti- 
mer, Griffith  and  Chirk.  '  A  Welsh  ward  in  the  hands 
of  a  Norman  Lord  Marcher  must  have  been  a  lamb 
among  wolves  indeed  ;  and  as  every  one,  no  doubt, 
expected,  under  conditions  so  painfully  tempting, 
the  two  boys  in  due  course  disappeared  and  were  no 
more  seen,  while  two  magnificent  castles  arose  at 
Chirk  and  Holt  respectively,  with  a  view  to  securing 
to  these  unjust  stewards  their  ill-gotten  territory.  A 
black  tale,  which  posterity  has  accepted,  crept  steadily 
about,  to  the  effect  that  a  deep  pool  in  the  Dee  be- 
neath Holt  Castle  could  tell  of  a  midnight  tragedy 
therein  enacted.  The  two  boys  at  any  rate  disap- 
peared, and  the  Earls,  according  to  custom,  suc- 
ceeded to  their  estates.  Nor  is  it  very  likely  that 
the  King,  who  himself  had  a  slice  of  them  in  that 
outlying  fragment  of  Flint  still  conspicuous  on  the 
map  of  England,  asked  many  questions.    J 

It  seems  that  such  conscience  as  Earl  Warren  pos- 
sessed was  smitten  with  compunction  as  years  went 
on,  and  these  twinges  he  thought  to  allay  by  restor- 
ing a  fragment  of  the  property  to  the  family  he  had 
so  outraged.     When  the  King  was  sitting  at  Rhudd- 


88  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

lan  in  1282  the  remorseful  Earl  petitioned  that  the 
manors  of  Glyndyfrdwy  on  the  Dee  beyond  Llan- 
gollen and  of  Cynllaeth  a  few  miles  to  the  south  of 
it,  should  be  restored  to  Grififith,  an  uncle  of  the  two 
boys  whose  fate  weighed,  let  us  hope,  upon  his  soul. 
In  this  manner  Griffith  succeeded  to  these  estates 
and  was  known  as  Y  Baron  Gwyn,  or  "  the  White 
Baron,"  Lord  of  Glyndyfrdwy  in  Yale,  dying  about 
1300.  Fourth  in  direct  descent  from  him  and  occu- 
pying the  same  position  was  Owen  Glyndwr's  father, 
Grififith  Vychan  {i.  e.,  "  the  little  "  or  *'  the  younger  "), 
the  preceding  owner  having  been  a  Grififith  too.  To 
him  succeeded  Owen,  as  eldest  son,  holding  his  two 
manors,  like  his  fathers  before  him,  direct  from  the 
King.  On  his  mother's  side  Owen's  descent  was 
quite  as  distinguished, —  even  more  so  if  one  is  to 
believe  that  his  mother,  Elen,  was  a  great-grand- 
daughter of  Catherine,  the  daughter  of  the  last 
Llewelyn.  Putting  this  aside,  however,  as  mere 
tradition,  it  will  be  enough  to  say  that  Grififith 
Vychan's  wife  came  from  South  Wales  and  was  a 
daughter  of  Thomas  ap  Llewelyn  ap  Rhys,  a  descend- 
ant of  the  Princes  of  Deheubarth,  Lord  of  Iscoede 
Vchirwen  in  Cardigan  and  of  Trefgarn  in  the  parish 
of  Brawdy,  Pembrokeshire.  He  had  two  daughters, 
co-heiresses,  the  elder  of  whom,  Elen,  married  Owen's 
father,  while  the  younger  became  the  wife  of  Tudor 
ap  Gronow  of  Penmynydd,  the  grandfather  of  the 
famous  Owen  Tudor.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore, 
that  Thomas  ap  Llewelyn  was  the  ancestor  both  of 
Glyndwr  and  of  our  present  King. 
i  Owen  was  actually  born  in  the  South  Welsh  home 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  89 

of  his  mother's  family  and  inherited  property  from  , 
her  which  no  doubt  added  to  his  wealth  and  conse-  / 
quence.  Trefgarn  Owen,  Trefgarn  West  (or  "■casteV), 
still  exists  as  a  farmhouse,  and  the  tradition  that 
Owen  was  born  in  it  is  likely  long  to  outlast  the  edi- 
fice itself.  This  event  occurred  probably  in  the  year 
1359,  in  the  heyday  of  the  successful  wars  in  France, 
so  that  it  is  quite  possible  that  Griffith  Vychan  may 
have  been  among  the  crowd  of  Welsh  gentlemen 
who  followed  the  banners  of  Edward  the  Black 
Prince  across  the  Channel.  This  would  quite  ac- 
count for  the  presence  of  Owen's  mother  at  such  a 
time  in  the  home  of  her  fathers ;  and  as  we  know 
nothing  of  his  childhood,  it  is  perhaps  permissible  to 
indulge  in  conjectures  that  have  about  them  some 
reasonable  probability. 

r  Of  Owen's  early  manhood  and  domestic  life,  how- 
/ever,  quite  enough  is  known  to  dissipate  the  notion 
j   engendered  by  Shakespeare,  and  but  faintly  discour- 
i  aged  by  English  historians,  that  he  was  a  wild  Welsh 
chieftain,  a  sort  of  picturesque  mountaineer.     On  the 
contrary,  he  was  a  man  accustomed  to  courts  and 
.  camps,  and,  judged  by  the  standard  of  his  time,  an 
\  educated  and  polished  gentleman.     The  first  actual 
record  we  have  of  him  is  on  September  3,    1386, 
when  he  gave  evidence  at  Chester  as  a  witness  in  the 
greatest  and  most  prolonged  lawsuit  that  had  ever, 
i|n  England,  filled  the  public  eye.     This  was  the  cele- 
brated case  of  Scrope  and  Grosvenor,  the  point  in 
dispute  relating  solely  to  a  coat  of  arms.     It  lasted 
four  years  and    nearly  every  prominent   person  in 
the  country  at  one  time  or  another  gave  evidence. 


90  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

Among  these  appears  the  name  of  ^^Oweyn  Sire  de 
Glendore  de  age  XXVII  ans  et  pliiis,''  also  that  of 
"  Tudor  de  Glindore^'  his  brother,  who  was  some  three 
years  younger  than  Owen,  and  fell  ultimately  in  his 
service.  Of  the  nature  of  his  evidence  we  know 
nothing.  The  entry  is  only  valuable  as  giving  weight 
to  the  year  1359  as  the  most  likely  date  of  his  birth. 
In  the  social  economy  of  Wales,  Owen's  forbears, 
since  they  lost  at  the  Edwardian  conquest,  in  the 
manner  related,  the  chieftainship  of  Povvys  Fadog, 
had  been  simply  minor  barons  or  private  gentlemen 
of  fair  estate.  They  had  nothing  like  the  ofificial 
position,  the  wealth,  or  the  power  of  the  Lord 
Marchers.  Still  they  owed  no  allegiance,  as  did  many 
of  the  lesser  nobility,  to  any  great  Marcher  baron, 
but  held  their  estates  in  North  Wales  direct  from  the 
King  himself.  And  we  may  well  suppose  that  with 
the  long  memories  of  the  Welsh  no  Marcher  baron, 
no  Mortimer,  nor  Gray,  nor  Talbot,  whether  in  peace 
or  war,  was  in  their  eyes  so  great  a  man  as  simple 
Owen  of  Glyndyfrdwy,  on  whose  modest  patrimony 
the  vast  estates  of  these  interlopers  encroached.  As, 
in  the  ancient  tribal  laws  of  Wales,  it  took  nine  gen- 
erations for  an  alien  or  servile  family  to  qualify  for 
admission  to  full  rights,  so  it  was  equally  difificult  to 
make  a  medieval  Welshman  realise  that  the  ejected 
landowners  and  princes  of  their  own  race  were  other 
than  temporary  sufferers.  They  could  not  believe 
that  Providence  intended  to  perpetuate  so  great  an 
outrage.  They  recognised  in  their  hearts  no  other 
owner  but  the  old  stock,  whatever  the  exigencies  of 
the  times  might  compel  them  to  do  with  their  lips, 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  91 

and  even  their  spears  and  bows,  while  every  vagrant 
bard  and  minstrel  helped  to  fix  the  sentiment  more 
firmly  in  their  breasts. 

Owen  himself,  as  a  man  of  the  world,  had,  of  course, 
no  such  delusions.  No  one,  however,  when  the  time 
was  ripe,  knew  better  than  he  how  to  work  upon  the 
feelings  of  those  who  had.  A  family  grievance  of 
his  own,  as  we  have  shown,  he  might  justifiably  have 
nursed,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
was  on  bad  terms  with  the  houses  either  of  Warren 
or  Mortimer.  Indeed,  he  is  said  to  have  been  es- 
quire at  one  time  to  the  Earl  of  Arundel.  His  local 
quarrels  lay,  as  we  shall  see,  to  the  north  and  rested 
wholly  on  personal  grounds,  having  no  relation 
whatever  to  the  wrongs  of  his  great-great-grand- 
father. 

In  the  only  signature  extant  of  Owen  previous  to 
his  assumption  of  princely  honours,  we  find  him 
describing  himself  as  "  Oweyn  ap  Griffith,  Dominus 
de  Glyn  D'wfrdwy."  To  dwell  upon  the  innumerable 
ways  in  which  his  name  and  title  were  spelt  by  Nor- 
man and  Celtic  writers,  contemporary  and  otherwise, 
in  times  when  writers'  pens  vaguely  followed  their 
ears,  would  be,  of  course,  absurd,  v^he  somewhat 
formidable  sounding  name  of  Glyndyfrdwy  simply 
means  the  Glen  of  the  Dwrfdwy  or  Dyfrdwy,  which 
in  turn  is  the  original  and  still  the  Welsh  name  for 
the  river  Dee.  About  the  first  syllable  of  this  word 
philologists  have  no  scope  for  disagreement,  **  Dwr" 
or  *'  Dwfr  "  signifying  water  ;  but  concerning  the  ter- 
minal syllable  there  is  room  for  some  difference  of 
opinion.     It  will  be  sufficient  for  us  here  to  say  that 


92  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

the  derivations  which  seem  to  the  eye  most  obvious 
are  not  so  much  in  favour  as  that  from  "  Diw," 
sacred  or  divine.  This  attribute  at  any  rate  has  been 
bestowed  on  the  chief  and  most  beautiful  of  North 
Welsh  rivers  by  English  and  Welsh  poets  from 
Spenser  to  Tennyson  and,  according  to  the  former, 
"■  by  Britons  long  ygone.^* 

In  regard,  however,  to  the  pronunciation  of  the 
name  of  Owen's  patrimony,  when  I  have  said  that 
the  very  natives  of  the  historic  hamlet  slur  the  name 
into  something  like  Glyndowdy, — a  rare  luxury 
among  the  Welsh, — it  is  not  surprising  that  Anglo- 
Norman  chroniclers  and  others  have  made  havoc  of 
it  with  their  phonetic  spelling.  Even  Welsh  writers 
have  been  unsteady  upon  the  point.  /  And  Owen  of 
Glyndyfrdwy  probably  figures  under  more  designa- 
tions than  any  hero  who  ever  lived  :  Glendour, 
Glindor,  Glindore,  Glendurdy,  Glyndurdu,  and  Glen- 
dowerdy,  are  but  a  few  selected  specimens.*^ 

English  historians,  with  characteristic  contempt  of 
Welsh  detail,  have  selected  the  last  and  the  most  un- 
likely of  them  all.  In  his  own  country  Owen  was 
generally  known  during  his  later  life  and  ever  since 
his  death  as  Glyndwr,  the  spelling  to  which  I  have  ad- 
hered in  these  pages.  It  may  perhaps  not  be  out  of 
place  to  note  that  the  Welsh  *'  w  "  is  equivalent  to  a 
**ob,*'  and  by  a  Welsh  tongue  the  terminal  '*r"  is, 
of  course,  strongly  marked* 

Of  the  early  youth  of  Glyndwr  history  tells  us 
nothing,  nor,  again,  is  it  known  what  age  he  had 
reached  when  his  father  died  and  the  estate  came 
into  his  possession.     It  is  supposed  that  like  so  many 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  93 

Welshmen  of  his  time  he  went  to  Oxford  ;  but  this, 
after  all,  must  be  mere  surmise,  though,  judging  by 
the  bent  of  his  life  at  that  period,  we  seem  to  have 
good  grounds  for  it.  In  such  case  it  is  likely 
enough  that  he  took  a  leading  part  in  the  ferocious 
faction  fights  with  which  the  jealousies  of  English, 
Welsh,  and  Irish  students  so  often  enHvened  the 
cramped  streets  of  medieval  Oxford..^/It  is  quite 
certain,  however,  that  Owen  went  to  London  and  be- 
came a  student  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  a  course  vir- 
tually confined  in  those  times  to  the  sons  of  the 
wealthy  and  well-born.  There  is  something  very 
natural  in  the  desire  of  a  large  Welsh  landowner  of 
that  time  to  familiarise  himself  with  English  law, 
for  the  two  codes,  Welsh  and  English,  to  say  no- 
thing of  compromises  between  them,  existed  side  by 
side  over  nearly  all  Wales,  and  one  can  well  under- 
stand the  importance  of  some  knowledge  of  Anglo- 
Norman  jurisprudence  to  a  leading  Welshman  like 
Glyndwr,  who  must  have  had  much  to  do,  both 
directly  and  indirectly,  with  both  kinds  of  courts. 
That  he  was  no  wild  Welsh  squire  has  been  already 
shown,  and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  a  youth  of 
handsome  person,  high  lineage,  and  good  estate 
should  drift,  when  his  law  studies  were  completed, 
into  the  profession  of  arms  and  to  the  English  Court. 
Here  he  soon  found  considerable  favour  and  in  course 
of  time  became  squire  of  the  body,  or  ''scutiger,"  not, 
as  most  Welsh  authorities  have  persisted,  and  still 
persist,  to  King  Richard  the  Second,  but  to  his 
cousin  of  Bolingbroke,  the  future  Henry  the  Fourth.  4 
This  latter  view  is  certainly  supported  by  the  only 


\ 


94  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

documentary  evidence  extant,  as  Mr.  Wylie  in  his 
able  and  exhaustive  history  of  that  monarch  points 
out.  "  Regi  moderno  ante  susceptum  regnum,"  is  the 
sentence  in  the  Annales  describing  Glyndwr's  posi- 
tion in  this  matter,  and  it  surely  removes  any  doubt 
that  Bolingbroke  is  the  King  alluded  to.  In  such 
case  Owen  must  have  shared  those  perils  and  adven- 
tures by  land  and  sea  in  which  the  restless  Henry 
engaged.  It  is  strange  enough,  too,  that  men  linked 
together  in  a  relationship  so  intimate  should  have 
spent  the  last  fifteen  years  of  their  lives  in  a  struggle 
so  persistent  and  so  memorable  as  did  these  two. 
Bolingbroke  began  this  series  of  adventures  soon  after 
the  loss  of  his  wife,  about  the  year  1390,  and  we  may 
therefore,  with  a  fair  probability  of  truth,  picture 
Glyndwr  at  that  grand  tournament  at  Calais  where 
Henry  so  distinguished  himself,  and  poor  Richard  by 
comparison  showed  to  such  small  advantage.  He 
may  also  have  been  present  at  the  capture  of  Tu- 
nis, where  English  and  French  to  the  wonder  of  all 
men  fought  side  by  side  without  friction  or  jealousy ; 
or  again  with  Bolingbroke  on  his  long  journey  in 
1393  to  Jerusalem,  or  rather  towards  it,  for  he  never 
got  there.  There  were  adventures,  too,  which  Owen 
may  have  shared,  with  German  knights  upon  the 
Baltic,  and  last,  though  by  no  means  least,  with 
Sigismund,  King  of  Hungary,  at  that  memorable 
scene  upon  the  Danube  when  he  was  forced  into  his 
ships  by  the  victorious  Turks. 

~  Yet  the  tradition  is  so  strong  that  Glyndwr  was  in 
the  personal  service  of  Richard  during  the  close  of 
that  unfortunate  monarch's  reign,  that  one  hesitates 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  95 

I  to  brush  it  aside  from  mere  lack  of  written  evidence. 
Nor  indeed  does  the  fact  of  his  having  been  Henry's 
esquire  constitute  any  valid  reason  for  doing  so. 
It  is  not  very  likely  that,  when  the  latter  in  1398  was 
so  unjustly  banished  by  Richard  to  an  uneventful 
sojourn  in  France,  Glyndwr,  with  the  cares  of  a  family 
and  estate  growing  upon  him,  would  have  been  eager 
to  share  his  exile.  On  the  other  hand,  he  must  have 
been  by  that  time  well  known  to  Richard,  and  with 
his  Pembrokeshire  property  and  connections  may 
well,  like  so  many  Welshmen,  have  been  tempted 
later  on  to  embark  in  that  ill-fated  Irish  expedition 
which  promised  plunder  and  glory,  but  turned  out 
to  be  incidentally  the  cause  of  Richard's  undoing. 
That  this  feckless  monarch  possessed  some  peculiar 
charm  and  a  capacity  for  endearing  individuals  to 
his  person  seems  tolerably  evident,  however  strange. 
That  the  Welsh  were  devoted  to  him  we  know,  so 
that  perhaps  the  loyalty  to  Richard  with  which  most 
Welsh  writers  credit  Glyndwr  arose  from  such  per- 
sonal service  rendered  after  the  departure  of  Boling- 
broke  for  France.  And  it  is  quite  possible  that  he 
went,  as  they  assert,  with  the  King  on  that  last 
ill-timed  campaign  which  cost  him  his  crown. 

Some  declare  that  he  was  among  the  small  knot  of 
faithful  followers  who,  when  his  army  abandoned 
the  slothful  Richard  on  his  return  to  Pembrokeshire 
from  Ireland,  rode  across  country  with  him  to  Con- 
way, where  Salisbury  in  despair  had  just  been  com- 
pelled to  disband  his  freshly  mustered  Welshmen  for 
lack  of  food  and  pay.  If  this  is  true,  Glyndwr,  who 
most  certainly  never  lost  battles  from  sloth  or  timid- 


~\ 


J 


96  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

ity  when  he  became  in  one  sense  a  king,  must  have 
witnessed  with  much  sympathy  the  lamentations  of 
the  faithful  Salisbury : 

"0,call  back  yesterday,  bid  time  return, 
And  thou  shalt  have  ten  thousand  fighting  men  ; 
To-day,  to-day,  unhappy  day  too  late, 
O'erthrows  thy  joys,  friends,  fortune,  and  thy  state." 

All  this  occurred  in  September  of  the  year  1399. 
Henry,  taking  advantage  of  Richard's  absence,  had 
landed,  it  will  be  remembered,  at  Ravenspur  in  York- 
shire some  two  months  earlier.  He  found  discon- 
tent with  the  existing  state  of  affairs  everywhere 
prevalent  and  the  recognised  heir  to  the  throne  but 
lately  dead.  The  situation  was  tempting  to  a  degree. 
Bolingbroke's  first  intention  had  almost  certainly 
aimed  at  nothing  more  than  the  recovery  of  his  own 
immense  estates  of  which  he  had  been  most  un- 
justly and  unscrupulously  deprived  by  his  royal 
cousin.  But  unexpected  temptations  confronted 
him.  He  was  met  on  landing  by  the  Percys  and 
soon  afterwards  by  other  great  nobles,  who,  from 
what  motives  it  matters  little,  encouraged  him  to 
seize  the  throne.  To  make  a  short  story  of  a  famous 
episode  in  English  history,  Bolingbroke  found  him- 
self by  September,  when  Richard  was  returning  with 
fatal  tardiness  from  Ireland,  not  indeed  actually 
crowned,  but  in  full  possession  of  London  and  other 
districts  and  virtually  acknowledged  as  King.  In 
the  same  month  he  was  heading  a  triumphant  march 
by  way  of  Bristol  at  the  head  of  a  great  and  gathering 
army  towards  North  Wales,  where  Richard  lay,  as  we 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  97 

have  seen,  at  Conway,  helplessly  wringing  his  hands 
and  cursing  the  fate  he  had  brought  upon  himself. 

According  to  the  Welsh  version,  Glyndwr  must 
have  been  present  when  Percy,  Earl  of  Northumber- 
land, who  in  years  to  come  was  to  be  so  vitally  bound 
up  with  his  fortunes,  entered  the  great  hall  of  Con- 
way Castle,  to  all  appearances  a  friendly  and  un- 
armed envoy  of  Henry  of  Bolingbroke.  We  all 
remember  his  soft  speech  and  how  with  the  utmost 
deference  and  humility  he  told  King  Richard  that  all 
his  dear  cousin  required  of  him  was  to  ride  back  by 
his  side  to  London  and  there  summon  a  Parliament, 
and  bring  to  justice  certain  persons,  who,  for  the  past 
few  years,  had  been  his  evil  counsellors.  If  Glyndwr 
was  in  truth  there,  he  must  almost  certainly  have 
seen  these  two  illustrious  personages  commit  that 
astounding  piece  of  perjury  and  sacrilege  in  Conway 
church,  when  they  knelt  side  by  side  and  swore  be- 
fore the  altar  and  upon  the  sacred  elements  that 
their  intentions  towards  each  other  were  wholly 
friendly  and  without  guile.  He  must  then,  too, 
have  heard  King  Richard,  when  scarcely  off  his 
knees,  swear  that  if  only  he  could  get  his  dear  cousin 
of  Bolingbroke  into  his  hands  he  would  put  him  to 
such  a  cruel  death  it  should  be  long  spoken  of  even 
in  Turkey.  Perhaps  it  was  the  memory  of  the  spec- 
tacle that  decided  Glyndwr  on  certain  occasions  in 
his  after  life  to  show  a  curious  reluctance  to  **  put  his 
trust  in  princes,"  however  loyal  in  the  abstract  he 
might  be  to  their  memory.  If  we  follow  the  Welsh 
tradition,  he  saw  this  game  of  duplicity  to  the  bitter 

end  and  made  one  of  the  small  band  of  horsemen 
7 


98  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

who  crossed  the  estuary  of  the  Conway  in  the  dawn 
of  an  autumn  morning  with  the  puling  king  on 
their  way  to  Rhuddlan  Castle,  whose  ivy-mantled 
ruins  still  make  such  a  charming  picture  amid  the 
meadows  where  the  Clwyd  winds  its  tidal  course 
towards  the  sea.  Long  before  Richard  got  there,  and 
while  still  surmounting  the  steep  headland  of  Rhos 
above  Old  Colwyn,  he  caught  sight  of  the  troops 
which  the  crafty  Northumberland  had  left  there  in 
concealment.  It  was  too  late  to  retreat.  The 
waves  roared  far  beneath  him  and  rocky  crags  tow- 
ered high  above  his  head.  He  saw  that  he  was  un- 
done and  read  in  the  situation  the  black  treachery  he 
would  have  himself  dealt  out  with  scant  scruple  to 
anyone  lingering  in  the  path  of  self-indulgence, 
which  he  had  so  long  trodden. 

"  O  that  I  were  as  great 
As  is  my  grief,  or  greater  than  my  name, 
Or  that  I  could  forget  what  I  have  been, 
Or  not  remember  what  I  must  be  now." 

Amid  faces  from  which  the  friendly  mask  had 
already  half  fallen  and  spears  that  may  well  have  had 
an  ominous  glitter  in  his  eyes,  the  disheartened  King 
passed  on  to  Rhuddlan  and  from  Rhuddlan  to  the 
strong  castle  of  Flint.  Here  in  the  morning  came 
to  him  his  cousin  of  Bolingbroke,  inquiring,  among 
other  things,  whether  he  had  broken  his  fast,  for  he 
had  a  long  ride  before  him.  Whereat  Richard  de- 
manded what  great  army  was  that  which  darkened 
the  sands  of  Dee  below  the  castle  walls.      Henry  re- 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  99 

plied  curtly  that  they  were  Londoners  for  the  most 
part,  and  that  they  had  come  to  take  him  prisoner  to 
the  Tower,  and  nothing  else  would  satisfy  them.  If 
Glyndwr  were  indeed  present  it  must  have  been  a 
strange  enough  sight  for  him,  this  meeting  of  his 
former  patron  and  his  present  master,  under  such 
sinister  circumstances,  in  the  gloomy  chambers  of 
Flint  Castle.  If  he  were  still  here  it  may  be  safely 
assumed  that,  like  the  rest  of  Richard's  escort,  he 
went  no  farther.  Even  if  he  were  absent,  quietly 
hawking  and  hunting  at  Glyndyfrdwy,  there  would 
be  nothing  irrelevant  in  calling  to  the  reader's  recol- 
lection a  famous  episode,  the  chief  actors  in  which 
had  so  far-reaching  an  influence  on  the  Welsh  hero's 
life  ;  how  all  semblance  of  respect  for  the  King's 
person  was  dropped  ;  how,  mounted  of  design  upon  a 
sorry  nag,  he  was  led  with  many  indignities  along  the 
weary  road  to  London  and  there  made  to  read  his 
own  abdication  in  favour  of  his  captor  and  cousin ; 
and  how  he  was  hurried  from  fortress  to  fortress, 
till  at  Pontefract  he  ended  his  misspent  life  in  a  man- 
ner that  to  this  day  remains  a  mystery — all  this  is 
a  matter  of  historic  notoriety.  Whether  the  unfort- 
unate Richard  died  of  grief,  failing  health,  and  lack 
of  attention,  or  whether  he  was  the  victim  of  delib- 
erate foul  play,  only  concerns  us  here  from  the  fact 
of  his  name  occurring  so  frequently  in  our  story  as  a 
rallying-cry  for  Henry's  enemies,  and  from  the  mys- 
tery attaching  to  the  manner  of  his  death  being  for 
years  a  genuine  grievance  among  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  disaffected,  and  a  handy  weapon  for  their  more 
designing  leaders. 


lOO  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

How  much  of  his  life  Glyndwr  had  so  far  spent 
in  his  native  valleys  of  the  Dee  or  Cynllaeth  it  is 
impossible  to  guess.  Perhaps  at  odd  times  a  good 
deal  of  it ;  seeing  that  he  was  now  over  forty,  had 
found  time  to  marry  a  wife,  a  lady  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, by  whom  he  had  become  the  father  of  a  numer- 
ous family,  and  to  win  for  himself  great  popularity 
and  a  name  for  hospitality.  The  famous  Welsh  poet, 
GryfTydd  Llwyd,  much  better  known  by  his  bardic 
name  of  "  lolo  Goch,"  or  the  Red  lolo,  was  his  con- 
stant friend  and  companion  at  this  time,  and  became, 
later  on,  the  Laureate  of  his  Court  and  of  his  cause. 
In  the  thick  volume  which  the  extant  works  of  lolo 
fill  he  has  left  us  a  graphic  though  somewhat  fantas- 
tic picture  of  Glyndwr's  domestic  life.  I  have  al- 
ready shown  how  the  Welsh  chieftain  owned  the  two 
estates  of  Glyndyfrdwy  and  Sycherth  or  Cynllaeth  in 
his  native  district,  while  from  his  mother  he  inherited 
property  in  Pembroke.  The  two  former  places  were 
near  together.  If  the  mountain  fringes  of  Glyn- 
dyfrdwy, which  ran  east  and  west,  did  not  actually 
touch  the  Sycherth  estate,  which  ran  north  and 
south  with  the  waters  of  the  Cynllaeth  brook,  there 
could  have  been  little  but  the  deep  Vale  of  the 
Ceiriog  to  divide  them.  There  were  mansions  upon 
both  estates,  and,  though  Glyndyfrdwy  was  the  more 
important  property,  it  was  in  the  less  striking  but 
still  charming  valley  down  which  the  Cynllaeth  bab- 
bles to  meet  the  Tanat  beneath  the  woodlands  of 
Llangedwyn,  that  Sycherth  or  Sychnant,  the  more 
imposing  of  Glyndwr's  two  houses,  was  situated. 
This  valley  lies  snugly  tucked  away  behind  the  first 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  loi 

ridge  of  hills  which  rises  abruptly  behind  Oswestry 
and  so  conspicuously  marks  the  Welsh  frontier.  It 
practically  skirts  the  English  border,  and  Offa's  Dyke 
trails  its  still  obvious  course  along  the  lofty  summit 
of  its  eastern  boundary.  Scarcely  anywhere,  indeed, 
does  the  Principality  begin  in  a  social  sense  with 
such  striking  abruptness.  Once  over  the  hill  from 
Shropshire,  and  within  a  short  hour's  drive  from 
Oswestry,  and  you  are  for  every  practical  purpose  in 
the  heart  of  Celtic  Wales.  Few  travellers  come  this 
way,  for  it  is  on  the  road  to  nowhere  that  the  out- 
side world  takes  count  of,  and  few  strangers  but  an 
occasional  antiquary  ever  see  the  well-defined  and 
flat-topped  tumulus  on  which  the  manor  house  of 
the  most  famous  of  all  Welshmen  stood.  It  lies  in 
a  meadow  between  a  wooded  hill  and  the  Cynllaeth 
brook,  not  far  from  Llansilin,  and  is  very  conspicu- 
ous from  the  road  leading  up  the  valley  to  the  little 
hamlet,  whose  churchyard  holds  the  dust  of  another 
famous  Welshman,  the  seventeenth -century  poet, 
Huw  Morris.  The  inner  and  the  outer  moat  of 
Sycherth  are  still  more  or  less  perfect,  and  there  are  J 
even  yet,  or  were  not  long  ago,  plain  traces  of  stone-  \ 
work  beneath  the  turf.  It  will  be  well,  however,  to  ^ 
let  lolo,  who  was  there  so  much  and  knew  it  so  well, 
tell  us  what  it  looked  like  in  his  time,  five  hundred 
years  ago. 

There  was  a  gate-house,  he  says,  a  strong  tower, 
and  a  moat.     The  house  contained  nine  halls,  each    , 
furnished  with  a  wardrobe  filled  with  the  raiment  of 
Owen's  retainers.     Near  the  house  on  a  verdant  bank    ; 
was  a  wooden   building  supported  upon  posts  and    ■ 


I02  Owen  Glyndwr  L1359- 

roofed  with  tiles.  Here  were  eight  apartments  in 
which  the  guests  slept.  There  was  a  church,  too,  in 
the  form  of  a  cross,  and  several  chapels.  The  man- 
sion was  surrounded  with  every  convenience  and  ev- 
ery essential  for  maintaining  a  profuse  hospitality : 
a  park,  warren  and  pigeon-house,  mill,  orchards,  and 
vineyard  ;  a  fish-pond  well  stocked  with  "  gwyniads  " 
from  Bala  Lake,  a  heronry,  and  plenty  of  game  of  all 
sorts.  The  cook,  lolo  declares  with  much  enthusi- 
asm, was  one  of  the  very  best  ;  and  the  hospitality 
of  the  establishment  so  unstinted  that  the  office  of 
gate  porter  was  a  sinecure.  Our  bard  indeed  makes 
his  poetic  lips  literally  smack  over  the  good  things 
beneath  which  Glyndwr's  table  groaned.  Nor  does 
he  forget  his  hostess  : 

"  The  best  of  wives, 
Happy  am  I  in  her  wine  and  metheglyn  ; 
Eminent  woman  of  a  knightly  family, 
Honourable,  beneficent,  noble, 
Her  children  come  forward  two  by  two, 
A  beautiful  nest  of  chieftains." 

Charming,  however,  as  is  the  site  of  Sycherth,  nest- 
ling beneath  its  wooded  hill  and  looking  out  towards 
the  great  masses  of  the  Berwyn  Mountains,  it  would 
ill  compare  with  that  almost  matchless  gem  of  Welsh 
scenery,  where  the  vales  of  Edeyrnion  and  Llangol- 
len meet  among  the  mantling  woodlands  and  sound- 
ing gorges  of  Glyndyfrdwy.  \lt  is  a  curiously  apt 
coincidence  that  one  of  the  most  romantic  spots  in 
Wales  should  have  been  the  cradle  of  the  man  who 
is  without  doubt  the   most  romantic  personage  in 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  103 

Welsh  history.  Scarcely  anyone,  as  I  have  said, 
ever  finds  his  way  to  Sycherth  ;  but  thousands  of 
travellers  every  summer  follow  by  road  or  rail  that 
deHghtful  route  which,  hugging  the  Dee  from  Rua- 
bon  almost  to  its  source  beyond  Bala  Lake,  re- 
veals new  beauties  at  every  turn.  Such  being  the 
case  I  would  venture  to  ask  any  intending  traveller 
from  Ruabon  to  Bala  and  Dolgelly  to  take  special 
note  of  a  spot  just  five  minutes  to  the  westward  of 
Glyndyfrdwy  station,  where  the  wide  torrent  of  the 
Dee,  after  clinging  to  the  railroad  for  some  distance, 
takes  a  sudden  bend  to  the  north.  Precisely  here, 
but  perched  high  upon  the  other  side  of  the  railroad 
and  so  nearly  overhanging  it  as  not  to  be  readily  vis- 
ible, is  a  green  tumulus  crowned  by  a  group  of  wind- 
swept fir  trees.  This  is  locally  known  as  "  Glyndwr's 
Mount,"  not  because,  as  was  probably  the  case  at 
Sycherth,  it  was  erected  as  a  foundation  for  the 
chieftain's  house, — since  this  one  here  is  evidently 
prehistoric, — but  merely  from  the  fact  that  the  house 
stood  at  its  foot.  Vague  traces  of  the  house  are  still' 
visible  beneath  the  turf  of  the  narrow  meadow  that 
lies  squeezed  in  between  the  Holyhead  Road  on  the 
upper  side  and  the  river  and  railroad  on  the  lower 
side.*  Whether  Sycherth  was  Owen's  favourite  home 
in  peace  or  not,  Glyndyfrdwy  was  most  certainly  his 
more  natural  headquarters  in  war,  while  in  his  own 


*  A  friend  of  the  writer,  who  lived  to  an  advanced  age,  was  told  in 
his  youth  by  old  men  in  the  neighbourhood  that  they  could  remem- 
ber when  there  was  a  good  deal  of  stonework  to  be  seen  lying  about. 
Now,  however,  there  is  little  to  mark  the  spot  but  the  suggestive  un- 
dulations of  the  turf. 


I04  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

district.  Both,  however,  were  burnt  down  by  Prince 
Henry,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  in  one  of  his  expedi- 
tions against  the  Welsh.  As  for  the  mound,  it  is  a 
notable  landmark,  being  one  of  a  series  which  are 
sprinkled  along  the  Dee  valley  in  such  fashion  as  to 
indicate  beyond  a  doubt  that  if  they  were  indeed 
the  tombs  of  dead  warriors,  they  were  also  most  ad- 
mirable signal-stations  for  living  ones.  But  what- 
ever the  origin  of  this  one  it  had  at  any  rate  no 
connection  with  times  so  recent  as  those  of  Glyndwr. 
The  only  surviving  relic  of  that  hero's  residence  is  a 
long,  narrow  oaken  table  of  prodigious  thickness, 
which  is  yet  treasured  in  a  neighbouring  farmhouse. 
A  meadow  below  is  still  called  **  Parliament  field," 
while  the  massive  old  stone  homestead  of  Pen-y-bont, 
half  a  mile  up  the  valley,  contains  a  portion  of  the 
walls  which  formed,  it  is  believed,  Glyndwr's  stables, 
or,  more  probably,  his  farm  buildings.  But  as  many 
of  these  local  points  will  come  up  in  the  course  of 
my  story,  it  is  time  to  say  something  of  the  lady 
who,  so  entirely  blest  in  her  earlier  years,  was  to 
spend  her  later  ones  amid  such  stress  and  storm,  and 
to  share  so  precarious  a  crown. 

This  lady  bountiful  of  Sycherth  and  Glyndyfrdwy, 
so  extolled  by  lolo,  came  of  a  notable  Flintshire 
house.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Sir  David  Hanmer 
of  Hanmer,  a  family  long  settled  in  that  detached 
fragment  of  Flint  known  then  as  Maelor  Seisnig,  or 
*'  English  Maelor."  Sir  David  had  been  appointed  by 
Richard  the  Second  one  of  the  Justices  of  the  King's 
Bench  and  at  the  same  time  knighted.  There  are 
Hanmers  even  yet  in  those  parts  ;  till  comparatively 


13991  Birth  and  Early  Life  105 

lately  there  were  still  Hanmers  of  Hanmer.  More 
enduring  than  a  human  stock,  there  are  monuments  in 
stone  and  brass  that  tell  the  story,  common  enough 
in  England,  of  a  family  that  for  centuries  were  great 
in  their  own  district  without  ever  making  their  name 
a  familiar  one  to  the  average  British  ear.  The  Han- 
mers, too,  were  a  fair  specimen  of  many  families  in 
the  Welsh  Marches  who  had  both  English  and  Welsh 
blood  in  their  veins,  and  whose  sympathies  were  di- 
vided when  social  animosities  took  a  warlike  turn. 
It  was  very  much  so  indeed  with  the  Hanmers  when 
Glyndwr's  war  by  degrees  forced  everyone  to  take 
a  side  in  self-defence.  Of  Glyndwr's  sons  only  two 
are  directly  mentioned,  Griffith  and  Meredith,  both 
of  whom  we  shall  findHghling  byliis  side,  but  at 
such  an  advanced  stage  of  the  struggle  that  it  seems 
probable  they  were  but  boys  when  hostilities  broke 
out.  We  hear  dimly  of  three  more,  Madoc,  Thomas, 
and  John.  Of  the  daughters  somewhat  more  is 
known  ]^nd  they  must  for  the  most  part  have  been 
older,  since  it  seems  that  three  were  married  before 
the  troubles  began.  The  eldest,  Isabel,  became  the 
wife  of  a  Welshman,  Adda  ab  lorwerth  Ddu.  The 
second,  Elizabeth,  married  Sir  John  Scudamore  of 
Kent  Church  and  Holme  Lacy  in  Herefordshire, 
whose  descendants  still  retain  the  name  and  the  first 
of  these  historic  manors.  Another,  Janet,  was  given 
to  John  Crofts  of  Croft  Castle  in  the  same  county, 
and  the  youngest,  Margaret,  called  after  her  mother, 
took  another  Herefordshire  gentleman,  Roger  Mon- 
nington  of  Monnington.  The  most  celebrated  was 
the  fourth  daughter,  Jane,  whom  we  shall  find  being 


io6  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

united  under  romantic  circumstances  to  her  father's 
illustrious  captive  and  subsequent  ally,  Sir  Edmund 
Mortimer.  She  it  is,  of  course,  whom  Shakespeare 
brings  upon  his  stage  and,  in  her  song  to  Hotspur 
and  Mortimer, 

"  Makes  Welsh  as  sweet  as  ditties  highly  penned,  j 
Sung  by  a  fair  queen  in  a  summer's  bower."     ^ 

The  Commote  of  Glyndyfrdwy,  which  formed 
Owen's  Dee  property,  lay  in  the  then  newly  formed 
county  of  Merioneth,  though  it  was  wedged  in  by 
the  Marcher  lordships  of  Chirk,  Bromfield,  and  Yale 
on  the  east ;  while  to  the  north,  Denbighshire  as  yet 
having  no  existence,  it  touched  the  Norrhan  lord- 
ships of  Ruthin  and  Denbigh  in  the  Vale  of  Clwyd. 
/iBut  Glyndwr  held  his  estates  direct  from  the  King, 
having  manor  courts  of  his  own,  and  resorting  in 
more  important  matters  to  the  assize  towns  of  Dol- 
gellyand  Harlech.  Corwen  must  have  been  actually 
on  his  property  but,  though  a  notable  gathering-spot 
in  war  time,  it  had  no  corporate  existence,  and  was 
probably  even  more  insignificant  in  size  than  the 
other  Merioneth  towns.  The  Welsh  did  not  herd 
together  in  towns  or  villages.  Each  individual  or 
group  of  individuals  dwelt  on  their  small  homesteads 
scattered  about  the  hillsides  or  cut  out  of  the  forests 
which  then  covered  so  much  of  the  country  and  had 
contributed  so  greatly  to  its  defence. 

^    Owen  in  his  home  life  must  have  been  something 

of  an  unique  personality.    He  was  the  equal  in  breed- 

•  ing  and  in  knowledge  of  the  world   of   the   great 


1399]  Birth  and  Early  Life  107 

barons  around  him, — the  Greys,  Talbots,  and  Charl- 
tons, — and  of  sufficient  estate  to  be  himself  a  grand 
seigneur.  Yet  his  hospitable  house  must  have  offered 
a  remarkable  contrast  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives  to 
the  grim  fortresses  of  Chirk,  or  Dinas  Bran,  or 
Ruthin,  whose  owners'  mission  in  life,  so  far  as  the 
Welsh  were  concerned,  was  to  make  themselves  un- 
pleasant. Their  claws,  it  is  true,  had  been  consider- 
ably cut  down  by  Edward  the  First,  but  the  same 
blood  was  there ;  and  the  habit  of  former  years, 
which  looked  upon  the  killing  of  a  Welshman  as  a 
meritorious  action,  only  wanted  an  opportunity  to 
reassert  itself. 

Owen's  rent-roll  was  about  two  hundred  pounds  a 
year,  and  some  slight  mental  effort  is  required  to  real- 
ise that  this  was  a  very  large  one,  both  actually  when 
judged  by  the  contemporary  value  of  money,  and 
relatively  as  regards  the  financial  standing  of  private 
landowners,  particularly  in  Wales,  where  this  was 
low.  Owen  was  probably  one  of  the  richest  native 
Welshmen  of  his  day.  Few  if  any  in  the  north  had 
such  an  opportunity  of  showing  the  contrast  between 
the  simple  and  profuse  hospitality  of  a  native  aristo- 
crat, and  the  stiff,  contemptuous  solemnity  of  the 
lord  of  a  Norman  fortress.  It  was  easy  enough  for 
the  descendant  of  Madoc  ap  Griffith  to  make  himself 
popular  upon  the  the  banks  of  the  upper  Dee,  and 
Owen  seems  to  have  added  a  desire  to  do  so  to  the 
personal  fnagnetism  that  the  whole  story  of  his  life 
shows  him  to  have  possessed  in  a  very  high  degree. 
All  the  bards  of  his  own  time  and  that  immediately 
i  following   unite   in    this   praise    of   his    hospitality. 


io8  Owen  Glyndwr  [1359- 

Amid  much  fanciful  exaggeration,  such  for  instance 
as  that  which  compares  Sycherth  to  "Westminster 
Abbey  and  Cheapside/f  there  is  no  doubt  about  the 
esteem  and  admiration  in  which  Owen  was  held  by 
the  Welsh  and  particularly  by  the  bards  who  lived 
at  free  quarters  in  his  roomy  halls,  ^.^ut  all  this 
began  before  he  had  any  idea  of  utilising  his  position 
and  popularity  in  the  manner  that  has  made  him 
immortal.^^  There  is  really  no  authority  at  all  for 
making  him  a  follower  of  Richard.  All  Wales  and 
Cheshire  were  indignant  at  the  King's  deposition  and 
treatment,  and  Glyndwr,  even  supposing  his  Irish 
expedition  to  have  been  mythical,  may  well  have 
shared  this  indignation.\  But  in  such  a  case  his 
antecedents  were,  from  private  attachments,  wholly 
Lancastrian.'  Not  only  had  he  been  Bolingbroke's 
squire,  but  his  former  master,  the  Earl  of  Arundel, 
had  been  a  pronounced  foe  of  the  late  King.  Dis- 
content and  turbulence  were  brooding  everywhere, 
but  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Glyndwr  at 
this  date,  the  last  year  of  the  century,  had  any  ex- p 
cuse  whatever  for  entering  into  dynastic  quarrels. 
On  the  contrary,  unless  the  story  of  his  recent  con- 
nection with  Richard  be  true,  he  had  much  reason  to 
be  contented  with  Bolingbroke's  accession.  At  this 
moment  he  was  in  all  probability  living  quietly  at 
Sycherth,  hunting  deer  amid  the  birchen  woods  and 
bracken  glades  of  the  Berwyn  and  hawking  in  the 
meadows  of  Llansihn.  Amid  all  the  pleasures,  how- 
ever, which  filled  his  rural  life  there  rankled  one 
deep  and  bitter  grievance,  and  this  concerned  the  up- 
land tract  of  Croesau  that  lay  upon  the  north-western 


1399] 


Birth  and  Early  Life 


109 


fringe  of  his  Glyndyfrdwy  manor,  over  which  he  and 
his  powerful  neighbour,  Reginald  Grey,  Lord  of 
Ruthin,  had  been  falling  out  this  many  a  long  day. 
The  details  of  this  quarrel,  the  primary  cause  of 
that  decade  of  strife  which  desolated  Wales  and  pro- 
foundly influenced  the  reign  and  embittered  the  life 
of  Henry  of  Bolingbroke,  must  be  reserved  for  an- 
other chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 

GLYNDWR  AND   LORD    GREY  OF  RUTHIN 
140O-1401 

REGINALD,  Lord  Grey,  of  Ruthin,  the  prime 
cause  of  all  the  wars  that  devastated  Wales 
and  the  English  Marches  throughout  the  first 
ten  years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  was  a  typical  Lord 
Marcher,  and  was  perhaps  the  worst  of  a  fierce,  un- 
scrupulous, and  pitiless  class.  His  ancestors  had 
been  in  the  Vale  of  Clwyd  for  over  a  hundred  years. 
At  Edward's  conquest  the  first  Earl  had  been  planted 
by  the  King  at  Ruthin  to  overawe  the  Welsh  of 
what  is  now  northern  Denbighshire  and  of  the  two 
recently  created  counties  of  Flint  and  Carnarvon 
which  lay  upon  either  side.  There  were  other 
Lord  Marchers  and  other  English  garrisons  between 
Chester  and  Carnarvon,  but  at  the  time  this  story 
opens  the  Greys  were  beyond  a  doubt  the  most  ar- 
dent and  conspicuous  props  of  the  English  Crown. 
The  great  Red  Castle  at  Ruthin,  the  *'Castell  y 
Gwern  Loch,"  had  risen  in  Edward's  time  beside  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Clwyd,  and  its  ample  ruins  still 
cluster  round  the  modern  towers  where  the  successors 


_l  I- 

o  3 

z  o 

E  o 

S  "■ 


1400-1401]      Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  1 1 1 

of  the  fierce  Lord  Marchers  exercise  a  more  peaceful 
sway. 

Around  Ruthin  Castle,  as  at  Denbigh,  Conway,  and 
Carnarvon,  a  group  of  English  adventurers — sold- 
iers, tradesmen,  clerks,  and  gentlemen — had  gath- 
ered together  and  built  for  themselves  habitations, 
aided  by  favourable  charters  from  the  King,  and  still 
greater  favours  from  their  lord,  who  leant  upon  their 
services  in  times  of  danger.  They  led  profitable, 
if  sometimes  anxious  lives.  Welsh  and  English  alike 
pleaded  before  the  lordship  courts,  whose  records 
may  still  be  read  by  the  curious  in  such  matters. 
Both  Welsh  and  English  laws,  theoretically  at  any 
rate,  were  administered  within  the  lordship,  but  as 
the  Lord  Marcher  was,  within  his  own  domain,  a  law 
unto  himself,  the  state  of  aflFairs  that  existed  at 
Ruthin  and  similar  places  was  complicated  and  is 
not  immediately  pertinent  to  this  story.  It  will  be 
quite  accurate  enough  for  present  purposes  to  de- 
scribe Grey  as  surrounded  and  supported  by  armed 
burghers  and  other  dependents,  mainly  but  not 
wholly  of  English  blood,  while  the  mass  of  the 
Welsh  within  his  lordship,  gentle  and  simple,  re- 
mained obedient  to  his  rule  from  fear  and  not  from 
love.  I  need  not  trouble  the  reader  with  the  limit- 
ations of  his  territory,  but  merely  remark  that  it 
bordered  upon  that  of  Owen. 

Now,  upon  the  wild  upland  between  the  Dee  valley 
and  the  watershed  of  the  Clwyd,  lay  the  common 
of  Croesau,  whose  disputed  ownership  eventually 
set  Wales  and  England  by  the  ears.  This  strip  of 
land  had  originally  belonged  to  Owen's  estate  of 
\ 


112  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

Glyndyfrdwy.  Lord  Grey,  however,  in  Richard  the 
Second's  time,  had,  in  high-handed  fashion,  appro- 
priated it  to  himself  on  the  sole  and  poor  excuse 
that  it  marched  with  his  own  domain.  Glyndwr, 
being  at  that  time  probably  no  match  for  Grey  at 
the  game  of  physical  force,  possessed  his  fiery  soul 
in  patience,  and  carried  the  dispute  in  a  peaceful 
and  orderly  manner  to  the  King's  court  in  London. 
Here  the  justice  of  his  claim  was  recognised  ;  he 
won  his  suit  and  Lord  Grey  was  compelled  to  with- 
draw his  people  from  the  disputed  territory,  cherish- 
ing, we  may  well  believe,  an  undying  grudge  against 
the  Welshman  who,  before  the  eyes  of  all  the  world 
and  in  an  English  court  of  justice,  had  got  the  better 
of  him. 

Now,  however,  a  new  King  was  upon  the  throne, 
and  Owen  apparently  out  of  favour.  The  oppor- 
tunity was  too  good  an  one  to  be  missed  by  the 
grasping  Norman,  who,  driving  Owen's  people  off 
the  disputed  territory,  annexed  it  once  more  to  his 
own  estate.  Glyndwr  nevertheless,  whatever  the 
cause  may  have  been,  proved  himself  even  under 
this  further  provocation  a  law-abiding  person,  and, 
refraining  from  all  retaliation,  carried  his  suit  once 
more  to  London  and  laid  it  before  the  Parliament 
which  Henry  summoned  in  the  spring  of  1400, 
six  months  after  he  had  seized  the  throne.  But 
Owen,  though  he  had  been  esquire  to  the  King,  was 
now  wholly  out  of  favour,  so  much  so  as  greatly  to 
support  the  tradition  that  he  had  served  the  unfort- 
unate Richard  in  a  like  capacity.  His  suit  was  not 
even   accorded  the  compliment  of  a  hearing,  but 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  1 1 3 

was  dismissed  with  contemptuous  brevity.  Trevor, 
Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  who  was  then  about  the  King's 
person  and  deeply  in  his  confidence,  protested  in 
vain  against  the  unjust  and  ill-advised  course.  As 
a  Welshman,  familiar  with  the  condition  of  his  own 
country,  he  solemnly  warned  the  authorities  against 
provoking  a  man  who,  though  of  only  moderate 
estate,  was  so  powerful  and  so  popular  among  his 
own  people. 

The  Bishop's  pleadings  were  of  no  avail.  "  What 
care  we  for  the  barefooted  rascals  ?  "  was  the  scorn- 
ful reply.  The  Welsh  were  in  fact  already  in  an 
electrical  condition.  In  spite  of  their  general  dis- 
content with  English  rule,  they  had  been  attached  to 
Richard,  and  with  that  strength  of  personal  loyalty 
which  in  a  Celtic  race  so  often  outweighs  reason, 
they  resented  with  heartfelt  indignation  the  usurpa- 
tion of  Bolingbroke.  They  were  very  far  from  sure 
that  Richard  was  even  dead.  If  he  were,  then  Henry 
had  killed  him,  which  made  matters  worse.  But  if 
in  truth  he  actually  still  lived,  they  were  inclined  to 
murmur  as  loudly  and  with  as  much  show  of  reason 
at  his  dethronement.  Richard,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, after  having  been  compelled  publicly  and  form- 
ally to  abdicate  the  throne,  had  been  imprisoned 
for  a  time  in  the  Tower,  and  then  secretly  conveyed 
from  castle  to  castle  till  he  reached  Pontefract,  where 
he  ended  his  wretched  life.  The  manner  of  his  death 
remains  to  this  day  a  mystery,  as  has  been  intimated 
already.  Whether  he  was  murdered  by  Henry's 
orders  or  whether  his  weakened  constitution  suc- 
cumbed to  sorrow  and  confinement  or  bad  treatment, 

8 


114  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

no  one  will  ever  know.  But  his  body,  at  any  rate,  was 
brought  to  London  and  there  exposed  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  for  the  space  of  three  days,  that  all  the 
world  might  see  that  he  was  in  truth  dead.  The 
men  of  Wales  and  the  North  and  West  of  England 
had  to  take  all  this  on  hearsay,  and  were  readily 
persuaded  that  some  trickery  had  been  played  on 
the  Londoners  and  that  some  substitute  for  Rich- 
ard had  been  exposed  to  their  credulous  gaze.  For 
years  it  was  the  policy  of  Henry's  enemies  to  circul- 
ate reports  that  Richard  was  still  alive,  and,  as  we 
shall  see  in  due  course,  his  ghost  was  not  actually 
laid  till  the  battle  of  Shrewsbury  had  been  fought 
and  won  by  Henry.  Indeed,  so  late  as  1406  the  old 
Earl  of  Northumberland  alleged,  in  a  letter,  the  pos- 
sibility of  his  being  alive,  while  even  seven  years 
after  this  Sh-  John  Oldcastle  declared  he  would  never 
acknowledge  Parliament  so  long  as  his  master,  King 
Richard,  still  lived. 

Glyndwr,  after  the  insults  that  he  had  received  in 
London,  returned  home,  as  may  well  be  conceived, 
not  in  the  best  of  tempers ;  Grey,  however,  was  to 
perpetrate  even  a  worse  outrage  upon  him  than  that 
of  which  he  had  already  been  guilty  and  of  a  still 
more  treacherous  nature.  It  so  happened  that  at 
this  time  the  King  was  preparing  for  that  expedi- 
tion against  the  Scots  which  started  in  July,  1400. 
Among  the  nobility  and  gentry  whom  he  summoned 
to  his  standard  was  Glyndwr,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  assume  that  the  Welshman  would  have  failed 
to  answer  the  call.  The  summons,  however,  was 
sent  through  Lord  Grey,  in  his  capacity  of  chief 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  1 1 5 

Marcher  in  North  Wales ;  and  Grey,  with  incredibly 
r  poor  spite,  kept  Owen  in  ignorance  of  it  till  it  was 
too  late  for  him  either  to  join  the  King's  army  or 
to  forward  an  explanation.   vGlyndwr  was  on  this  ac- 
count credited  at  Court  with  being  a  malcontent 
and  a  rebel ;  and  as  there  had  been  some  brawling 
and  turbulence  upon  the  Welsh  border  the  future 
chieftain's  name  was  included  among  those  whom  it 
was  Grey's  duty,  as  it  was  his  delight,  to  punishV 
There  is  no  evidence  that  Owen  had  stirred.      It  is 
possible  he  might  have  made  himself  disagreeable  to 
/    Grey  upon  the  marches  of  their  respective  proper- 
f    ties.      It  would  be  strange  if  he  had  not.      There  is 
\    no  mention,  however,  of  his  name  in  the  trifling 
racial  disturbances  that  were  natural  to  so  feverish  a 
time. 

It  seems  pretty  evident  that  if  the  malicious  Lord 
Marcher  had  rested  content  with  his  plunder  and  let 
sleeping  dogs  lie,  Owen,  and  consequently  Wales, 
would  never  have  risen.  This  ill-advised  baron, 
however,  was  by  no  means  content.  He  applied  for 
further  powers  in  a  letter  which  is  now  extant,  and 
got  leave  to  proceed  in  force  against  Owen,  among 
others,  as  a  rebel,  and  to  proclaim  his  estates,  having 
an  eye,  no  doubt,  to  their  convenient  propinquity  in 
the  event  of  confiscation. 

But  before  Owen  comes  upon  the  scene,  and  dur- 
ing  this   same   summer,   a  most  characteristic  and 
'    entertaining  correspondence  was  being  carried  on 
between  the  irascible  Lord  Grey  and  a  defiant  gen- 
tleman of  North  Wales,  Grififith  ap  Dafydd  ap  Grif- 
/    fith,  the  "  strengest  thief  in  Wales,"  Grey  calls  him, 


ii6  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

which  is  to  say  that  he  accuses  him  of  carrying  off 
some  horses  from  his  park  at  Ruthin.  The  letters, 
which  are  in  Sir  Thomas  Ellis's  collection,  are  much 
too  long  to  reproduce,  but  they  show  unmistakably 
and  not  without  humour,  the  relations  which  existed 
between  Lord  Grey  and  some  of  his  Welsh  neigh- 
bours, who,  already  turbulent,  were  later  on  to  follow 
Glyndwr  into  the  field  of  battle.  The  King,  before 
starting  for  Scotland  and  before  getting  Grey's  let- 
ters, had  commanded  his  Lord  Marchers  to  use  con- 
ciliation to  all  dissatisfied  Welshmen  and  to  offer 
free  pardons  to  any  who  were  openly  defying  his 
authority. 

Griffith  ap  Dafydd,  it  seems,  had  been  promin- 
ent among  these  restive  souls,  but  under  a  promise, 
he  declares  in  his  letter,  of  being  made  the 
Master  Forester  and  "  Keyshat "  of  Chirkeland 
under  the  King's  charter,  he  had  presented  him- 
\self  at  Oswestry  and  claimed  both  the  pardon 
Vnd  the  ofKice.  In  the  last  matter  his  claim  was 
scouted,  according  to  his  own  account,  with  scan- 
dalous breach  of  faith,  and  even  his  bodily  safety 
did  not  seem  wholly  secure  from  the  King's  friends. 
He  narrates  at  some  length  the  story  of  his  wrongs, 
and  tells  Grey  that  he  has  heard  of  his  intention 
to  burn  and  slay  in  whatever  country  he  [Grififith] 
is  in.  "  Without  doubt,"  he  continues  "  as  many 
men  as  ye  slay  and  as  many  houses  as  ye  burn  for 
my  sake,  as  many  will  I  burn  and  slay  for  your 
sake,"  and  '' doute  not  that  I  will  have  bredde  and 
ale  of  the  best  that  is  in  your  Lordschip."  There 
is  something  delightfully  inconsequent  in  Griffith's 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  1 1 7 

method  of  ending  this  fire-breathing  epistle:  "Wret- 
ten  in  grete  haste  at  the  Park  of  Brunkiffe  the  Xlth 
day  of  June.  I  can  no  more,  but  God  kepe  your 
Worschipful  estate  in  prosperity." 

Grey  of  Ruthin  was  filled  with  wrath  at  this  impu- 
dence and  replied  to  the  "  strengest  thief  in  Wales  " 
at  great  length,  reserving  his  true  sentiments,  how- 
ever, for  the  conclusion,  where  he  bursts  into  rhyme  : 
"  But  we  hoope  we  shall  do  thee  a  pryve  thyng  :  A 
roope,  a  ladder  and  a  ring,  heigh  in  a  gallowes  for  to 
heng.  And  thus  shall  be  your  endyng.  And  he  that 
made  the  be  ther  to  helpyng.  And  we  on  our  behalf 
shall  be  well  willing  for  thy  letter  is  knowlechyng." 

It  is  quite  evident  that  the  Greys  had  not  lived, 
aliens  though  they  were,  in  the  land  of  bards 
for  five  generations  for  nothing.  Full  of  wrath, 
and  by  no  means  free  from  panic,  Grey  writes  off  in 
all  haste  to  the  young  Prince  Henry,  who  is  acting  as 
regent  during  his  father's  absence  in  the  north.  He 
encloses  a  duplicate  of  his  answer  to  the  "  strengest 
thief  in  Wales  "  and  advises  the  Prince  of  the  ''  Mis- 
governance  and  riote  which  is  beginning  heer  in  the 
Marches  of  North  Wales."  He  begs  for  a  fuller 
commission  to  act  against  the  rebels,  one  that  will 
enable  him  to  pursue  and  take  them  in  the  ^*  Kyng's 
ground  " ;  in  the  counties,  that  is  to  say,  where  the 
King's  writ  runs,  and  not  merely  in  the  lordships 
which  covered  what  are  now  the  counties  of  Den- 
bigh and  Montgomery.  "  But  worshipful  and  gra- 
cious Lorde,  ye  most  comaunden  the  Kynge's 
officers  in  every  Cuntree  to  do  the  same."  Grey 
goes  on  to  declare  that  there  are  many  officers,  some 


Ii8  Owe?i  Glyndwr  [1400- 

in  the  King's  shires,  others  in  the  lordships  of  Mor- 
timer at  Denbigh  and  of  Arundel  at  Dinas  Bran  and 
in  Powys-land,  that  are  "  kin  unto  these  men  that  be 
risen,  and  tyll  ye  putte  these  officers  in  better  gov- 
ernance this  Countrie  of  North  Wales  shall  nevere 
have  peese."  He  enclosed  also  the  letter  of  the 
''strengest  thief,"  and  begs  the  Prince  to  read  it  and 
judge  for  himself  what  sort  of  people  he  has  to  face. 
He  urges  him  to  listen  carefully  to  the  full  tidings 
that  his  poor  messenger  and  esquire  Richard  Donne 
will  give  him,  and  to  take  counsel  with  the  King  for 
providing  some  more  sufficient  means  of  curbing  the 
turbulent  Welshmen  than  he  now  has  at  his  dis- 
posal. "Else  trewly  hitt  will  be  an  unruly  Cuntree 
within  short  time." 

About  the  same  time  similar  despatches  to  the 
Prince  sitting  in  Council  were  flying  across  Wales 
penned  by  one  of  the  King's  own  officers,  the  Cham- 
berlain of  Carnarvon.  These  informed  the  author- 
ities, among  other  things,  that  the  Constable  of 
Harlech  had  trustworthy  evidence  of  a  certain  Mere- 
dith ap  Owen,  under  whose  protection  it  may  be 
mentioned  Griffith  ap  Dafydd,  Grey's  correspond- 
ent, lived,  being  in  secret  negotiation  with  the  men 
of  the  outer  isles  ('*  owt  yles  ")  of  Scotland,  ''  through 
letters  in  and  owt,"  that  these  Scottish  Celts  were  to 
land  suddenly  at  Abermaw  (Barmouth),  and  that 
Meredith  had  warned  his  friends  to  be  in  readiness 
with  horses  and  harness  against  the  appointed  time. 
It  was  also  rumoured  from  this  same  source  upon 
the  Merioneth  coast  that  men  were  buying  and  even 
stealing  horses,  and  providing  themselves  with  sad- 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  1 19 

dies,  bows,  arrows,  and  armour.  "■  Recheles  men  of 
divers  Countries,"  too,  were  assembling  in  desolate 
and  wild  places  and  meeting  privily,  though  their 
councils  were  still  kept  secret,  and  by  these  means 
the  young  men  of  Wales  were  being  greatly  demor- 
alised. 

No  special  notice  seems  to  have  been  taken  of  these 
urgent  warnings  by  those  whom  the  King  during  his 
absence  in  the  north  had  left  to  guard  his  interests. 
Tumults  and  disturbances  continued  both  in  Wales 
and  on  the  Marches  throughout  the  summer,  but 
nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  general  rising  took  place 
till  the  luckless  Grey,  armed  perhaps  with  the  fresh 
powers  he  had  sought  for,  singled  out  Glyndwr 
again  as  the  object  of  his  vengeance.  Glyndwr  had 
shown  no  signs  as  yet  of  giving  trouble.  His  name 
is  not  mentioned  in  the  correspondence  of  this  sum- 
mer, although  he  was  the  leading  and  most  influen- 
tial Welshman  upon  the  northern  Marches.  He  or 
his  people  may  have  given  Grey  some  annoyance,  or 
been  individually  troublesome  along  the  boundaries 
of  the  property  of  which  he  had  robbed  them. 
But  the  Lord  Marcher  in  all  likelihood  was  merely 
following  up  his  old  grudge  in  singling  out  Owen  for 
his  first  operations,  though  it  is  possible  that,  having 
regard  to  the  latter's  great  influence  and  the  seeth- 
ing state  of  Wales,  he  thought  it  politic  to  remove  a 
man  who,  smarting  under  a  sense  of  injustice,  might 
recommend  himself  for  every  reason  as  a  capable 
leader  to  his  countrymen.  One  would  have  sup- 
posed that  the  "  strengest  thief  in  Wales "  would 
have  claimed  Grey's  first  attention,  but  Griffith  ap 


I20  Owen  Glyndwr 


[1400- 


Dafydd,  who  dates  his  letter  from  '*  Brunkiffe,"*  a 
name  that  baffles  identification,  was  very  Hkely  out 
of  ordinary  reach.  However  that  may  be,  the  Lord 
of  Ruthin,  collecting  his  forces  and  joining  them  to 
those  of  his  brother  Marcher,  Earl  Talbot  of  Chirk, 
moved  so  swiftly  and  unexpectedly  upon  Owen  that 
he  had  only  just  time  to  escape  from  his  house  and 
seek  safety  in  the  neighbouring  woodlands  before  it 
was  surrounded  by  his  enemies.  Whether  this  not- 
able incident,  so  fraught  with  weighty  consequences, 
took  place  upon  the  Dee  or  the  Cynllaeth — at  Glyn- 
dyfrdwy,  that  is  to  say,  or  at  Sycherth — is  uncertain  ; 
conjecture  certainly  favours  the  latter  supposition, 
since  Sycherth  was  beyond  a  doubt  the  most  im- 
portant of  Owen's  mansions,  as  well  as  his  favourite 
residence.  Nearly  all  historians  have  hopelessly 
confounded  these  two  places,  which  are  seven  or 
eight  miles  apart  as  the  crow  flies  and  cut  off  from 
each  other  by  the  intervening  masses  of  the  Berwyn 
Mountains.  Seeing,  however,  that  Pennant,  the 
Welshman  of  topographical  and  archeological  re- 
nown, falls  into  this  curious  mistake  and  never  pene- 
trated to  the  real  Sycherth  or  seemed  aware  of  its 
existence,  it  is  not  surprising  that  most  English  and 
even  Welsh  writers  have  followed  suit. 

It  is  of  no  importance  to  our  story  which  of  the 
two  manors  was  the  scene  of  Owen's  escape  and  his 
enemy's  disappointment,  but  the  attack  upon  him 
filled  the  Welshman's  cup  of  bitterness  to  the  brim. 
It  was  the  last  straw  upon  a  load  of  foohsh  and 
wanton  insult ;  and  of  a  truth  it  was  an  evil  day  for 


■  Possibly  Brynkir  near  Criccieth. 


Copyright 


AN  OLD  STREET,  SHREWSBURY. 


J.  Bartlett. 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  121 

Grey  of  Ruthin,  and  for  his  master,  Henry,  that  saw 
this  lion  hunted  from  his  lair;  and  an  evil  day  per- 
haps for  Wales,  for,  though  it  gave  her  the  hero  she 
most  cherishes,  it  gave  her  at  the  same  time  a 
decade  of  utter  misery  and  clouded  the  whole  of 
the  fifteenth  century  with  its  disastrous  effects. 

Henry  was  very  anxious  to  conciliate  the  Welsh. 
Sore  and  angry  as  they  were  at  the  deposition  of 
their  favourite  Richard,  the  desultory  lawlessness 
which  smouldered  on  throughout  the  summer  would 
to  a  certainty  have  died  out,  or  remained  utterly  im- 
potent for  serious  mischief,  before  the  conciliatory 
mood  of  the  King,  had  no  leader  for  the  Welsh 
been  found  during  his  absence  in  the  north. 
Henry  had  beyond  question  abetted  his  council  in 
their  contemptuous  treatment  of  his  old  esquire's 
suit  against  Grey.  But  he  may  not  unnaturally 
have  had  some  personal  grievance  himself  against 
Owen  as  a  sympathiser  with  Richard  ;  a  soreness, 
moreover,  which  must  have  been  still  further  ag- 
gravated if  the  tradition  of  his  taking  service  under 
the  late  King  be  a  true  one.  Of  the  attachment 
of  the  Welsh  to  Richard,  and  their  resentment  at 
Henry's  usurpation,  we  get  an  interesting  glimpse 
from  an  independent  source  in  the  manuscript  of 
M.  Creton,  a  French  knight  who  fought  with  Rich- 
ard in  Ireland  and  remained  for  some  time  after 
his  depositition  at  the  English  Court.  He  was  pre- 
sent at  the  coronation  of  young  Prince  Henry  as 
Prince  of  Wales,  which  took  place  early  in  this 
year.  **  Then  arose  Duke  Henry,"  he  says,  "  the 
King's  eldest  son,  who  humbly  knelt  before  him, 


122  Owen  Glyndwr  CHOO- 

and  he  made  him  Prince  of  Wales  and  gave  him  the 
land.  But  I  think  he  must  conquer  it  if  he  will  have 
it,  for  in  my  opinion  the  Welsh  would  on  no  account 
allow  him  to  be  their  lord,  for  the  sorrow,  evil,  and 
disgrace  which  the  English  together  with  his  father 
had  brought  on  King  Richard." 

The  Welsh  had  now  found  a  leader  indeed  and  a 
chief  after  their  own  heart.  Owen  was  forty-one, 
handsome,  brave,  and,  as  events  were  soon  to  prove, 

\  as  able  as  he  was  courageous.  Above  all,  the  blood 
of  Powys  and  of  Llewelyn  ab  lorwerth  flowed  in  his 
veins.  He  was  just  the  man,  not  only  to  lead  them 
but  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  and  stir  up  the  long- 
crushed  patriotism  of  an  emotional  and  martial  race. 
He  seems  to  have  stept  at  once  to  the  front,  and  to 
have  been  hailed  with  acclamation  by  all  the  restless 
spirits  that  had  been  making  the  lives  of  the  Lord 
Marchers  a  burden  to  them  throughout  the  sum- 
mer, and  a  host  of  others  who  had  hitherto  had  no 
thought  of  a  serious  appeal  to  arms.  His  standard, 
the  ancient  red  dragon  of  Wales  upon  a  white 
ground,  was  raised  either  at,  or  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of,  his  second  estate  of  Glyndyfrdwy,  possibly 
at  Corwen,  where  many  valleys  that  were  populous 
even  then  draw  together,  and  where  the  ancient 
British  camp  of  Caer  Drewyn,  lifted  many  hundred 
feet  above  the  Dee,  suggests  a  rare  post  both  for 
outlook,  rendezvous,  and  defence.     Hither  flocked 

r'the  hardy  mountaineers  with  their  bows  and  spears, 
not  "ragged  barefoots,"  as   English  historians,  on 

\  the  strength  of  a  single  word,  nudepedibus,  used 
\  by  an  Englishman  in  London,  have  called  them  in 
\ 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  123 

careless  and  offhand  fashion,  but  men  in  great  part 
well  armed,  as  became  a  people  accustomed  to  war 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  and  well  clad,  as  became 
a  peasantry  who  were  as  yet  prosperous  and  had 
never  known  domestic  slavery.     From  the  vales  of 
Edeyrnion  and  Llangollen  ;  from  the  wild  uplands, 
too,  of  Yale  and  Bryn  Eglwys  ;  from  the  fertile  banks 
I     of  the  Ceiriog  and  the  sources  of  the  Clwyd  ;    and 
1     from  the  farther  shores  of  Bala  Lake,  where  beneath 
\    the  shadow  of  the  Arans  and  Arenig  fawr  popula- 
tion clustered  thick  even  in  those  distant  days,  came 
pouring  forth  the  tough  and  warlike  sons  of  Wales. 
In  the  van  of  all  came  the  bards,  carrying  not  only 
their  harps  but  the  bent  bow,  symbol  of  war.     It 
was  to  them,  indeed,  that  Glyndwr  owed  in  great 
measure   the   swift  and  universal   recognition   that 
made   him   at   once  the  man   of  the  hour.     Of  all 
classes   of   Welshmen    the   bardic   orders   were  the 
:   most  passionately  patriotic.     For  an  hundred  years 
\   their  calling  had  been  a  proscribed  one.     Prior  to 
/    Edward   the    First's   conquest   a   regular   tax,   the 
/    "  Cwmwrth,"  had    been    laid    upon  the  people  for 
their  support.     Since  then  they  had   slunk   about, 
if  not,  as  is  sometimes  said,  in  terror  of  their  lives, 
yet  dependent  always  for  their  support  on  private 
charity  and  doles. 

But  no  laws  could  have  repressed  song  in  Wales, 
and  indeed  this  period  seems  a  singularly  prolific 
one  both  in  poets  and  minstrels.  They  persuaded 
themselves  that  their  deliverance  from  the  Saxon 
grip  was  at  hand,  and  saw  in  the  valiant  figure  of 
Owain  of  Glyndyfrdwy  the  fulfilment  of  the  ancient 


124  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

prophecies  that  a  Welsh  prince  should  once  again 
wear  the  crown  of  Britain.  Glyndwr  well  knew 
that  the  sympathy  of  the  bards  would  prove  to  him 
a  tower  of  strength,  and  he  met  them  more  than 
half  way.  If  he  was  not  superstitious  himself  he 
understood  how  to  play  upon  the  superstition  and 
romantic  nature  of  his  countrymen.  The  old  pro- 
phecies were  ransacked,  portents  were  rife  in  sea 
and  sky.  The  most  ordinary  occurrences  of  nature 
were  full  of  significant  meaning  for  Owen's  follow- 
ers and  for  all  Welshmen  at  that  moment,  whether 
they  followed  him  or  not ;  and  in  the  month  of 
August  Owen  declared  himself,  and  by  an  already 
formidable  body  of  followers  was  declared,  "  Prince 
of  Wales."  His  friend  and  laureate,  lolo  Goch,  was 
by  his  side  and  ready  for  the  great  occasion. 

"Cambria's  princely   Eagle,  hail, 
Of  Gryffydd  Vychan's  noble  blood  ; 
Thy  high  renown  shall  never  fail, 
Owain  Glyndwr  great  and  good, 
Lord  of  Dwrdwy's  fertile  Vale, 
Warlike  high  born  Owain,  hail  !  " 

Glyndwr  would  hardly  have  been  human  if  he 
had  not  made  his  first  move  upon  his  relentless  en- 
emy. Lord  Grey  of  Ruthin.  There  is  no  evidence 
whether  the  latter  was  himself  at  home  or  not,  but 
Owen  fell  upon  the  little  town  on  a  Fair  day  and 
made  a  clean  sweep  of  the  stock  and  valuables 
I  therein  collected.  Thence  he  passed  eastwards,  har- 
\\  rying  and  burning  the  property  of  EngHsh  settlers 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  125 

or    English    sympathisers.     Crossing    the    English 
border  and  spreading  panic  everywhere,  he  invaded , 
western  Shropshire,  capturing   castles  and  burning 
houses  and  threatening  even  Shrewsbury. 

The  King,  who  had  effected  nothing  in  the  North, 
was  pulled  up  sharply  by  the  grave  news  from  Wales 
and  prepared  to  hasten  southwards.  By  September 
3rd  he  had  retraced  his  steps  as  far  as  Durham,  and 
passing  through  Pontefract,  Doncaster,  and  Leicester 
arrived  at  Northampton  about  the  14th  of  the 
same  month.  Here  fuller  details  reached  him,  and 
he  deemed  it  necessary  to  postpone  the  Parliament 
which  he  had  proposed  to  hold  at  Westminster  in 
September,  till  the  beginning  of  the  following  year, 
1401.  From  Northampton  Henry  issued  summons 
to  the  sheriffs  of  the  midland  and  border  counties 
that  they  were  to  join  him  instantly  with  their 
levies,  and  that  he  was  proceeding  without  delay  to 
\  quell  the  insurrection  that  had  broken  out  in  North 
Wales.  He  wrote  also  to  the  people  of  Shrewsbury, 
warning  them  to  be  prepared  against  all  attacks,  and 
to  provide  against  the  treachery  of  any  Welshmen 
that  might  be  residing  within  the  town.  Then,  mov- 
ing rapidly  forward  and  taking  his  son,  the  young 
Prince  Henry,  with  him,  he  reached  Shrewsbury 
about  the  24th  of  the  month. 

Henry's  crown  had  hitherto  been  a  thorny  one 
and  he  had  derived  but  little  satisfaction  from  it. 
The  previous  winter  had  witnessed  the  desperate 
plot  from  which  he  only  saved  himself  by  his  rapid 
ride  to  London  from  Windsor,  and  the  subsequent 
capture  and  execution  of  the   Earls  of  Salisbury, 


126  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

Kent,  and  Huntington,  who  had  been  the  ringlead- 
ers. From  his  unsteady  throne  he  saw  both  France 
and  Scotland  awaiting  only  an  opportune  moment 
to  strike  him.  The  whole  spring  had  been  passed 
in  diplomatic  endeavours  to  keep  them  quiet  till  he 
was  sure  of  his  own  subjects.  Isabella,  the  daughter 
of  the  King  of  France  and  child-widow  of  the  late 
King  Richard,  had  brought  with  her  a  considerable 
dower,  and  the  hope  of  getting  a  part  of  this  back, 
together  with  the  young  Queen  herself,  had  kept 
the  French  quiet.  But  Scotland,  that  ill-governed 
and  turbulent  country,  had  been  chafing  under  ten 
years  of  peace ;  and  its  people,  or  rather  the  restless 
barons  who  governed  them,  were  getting  hungry  for 
the  plunder  of  their  richer  neighbours  in  the  South, 
and,  refusing  all  terms,  were  already  crossing  the 
border.  Under  ordinary  circumstances  an  English 
king  might  have  left  such  matters  in  the  hands  of 
his  northern  nobles.  But  it  seemed  desirable  to 
Henry  that  he  should,  on  the  first  occasion,  show 
both  to  the  Scotch  and  his  own  people  of  what 
mettle  he  was  made.  He  was  also  angered  at  the 
lack  of  decent  excuse  for  their  aggressions.  So 
he  hurried  northward,  as  we  have  seen,  and  having 
hurled  the  invaders  back  over  the  border  as  far  as 
Edinburgh,  he  had  for  lack  of  food  just  returned 
to  Newcastle  when  the  bad  news  from  Wales  arrived. 
He  was  now  at  Shrewsbury,  within  striking  distance, 
as  it  seemed,  of  the  Welsh  rebels  and  their  arch- 
leader,  his  old  esquire,  Glyndwr.  Neither  Henry 
nor  his  soldiers  knew  anything  of  Welsh  campaign- 
ing or  of   Welsh  tactics,  for  five  generations  had 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  127 

passed  away  since  Englishmen  had  marched  and 
fought  in  that  formidable  country  and  against  their 
ancient  and  agile  foes.  Henry  the  Fourth,  so  far 
as  we  can  judge,  regarded  the  task  before  him  with 
a  light  heart.  At  any  rate  he  wasted  some  little 
time  at  Shrewsbury,  making  an  example  of  the  first 
Welshman  of  importance  and  mischievous  tendencies 
that  fell  into  his  hands.  This  was  one  Grenowe  ap 
Tudor,  whose  quarters,  after  he  had  been  executed 
with  much  ceremony,  were  sent  to  ornament  the 
gates  of  Bristol,  Hereford,  Ludlow,  and  Chester,  re- 
spectively. The  King  then  moved  into  Wales  with  / 
all  his  forces,  thinking,  no  doubt,  to  crush  Glyndwr 
and  his  irregular  levies  in  a  short  time  and  without 
much  difficulty.  This  was  the  first  of  his  many 
luckless  campaigns  in  pursuit  of  his  indomitable  and  / 
wily  foe,  and  perhaps  it  was  the  least  disastrous.) 
For  though  he  effected  nothing  against  the  Welsh 
troops  and  did  not  even  get  a  sight  of  them,  he  at 
least  got  out  of  the  country  without  feeling  the 
prick  of  their  spears,  which  is  more  than  can  be 
said  of  almost  any  of  his  later  ventures.  His  inva- 
sion of  Wales,  in  fact,  upon  this  occasion  was  a  pro- 
menade and  is  described  as  such  in  contemporary\ 
records.  He  reached  Anglesey  without  incident, 
and  there  for  the  sake  of  example  drove  out  the 
Minorite  friars  from  the  Abbey  of  Llanfaes  near 
Beaumaris,  on  the  plea  that  they  were  friends  of 
Owen.  The  plea  seems  to  have  been  a  sound  one, 
for  the  Franciscans  were  without  doubt  the  one 
order  of  the  clergy  that  favoured  Welsh  independ- 
ence.    But  Henry,  not  content  with  this,  plundered 


128  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

their  abbey,  an  inexcusable  act,  and  one  for  which 
/in  after  years  some  restitution  appears  to  have  been 
\  made.     Bad  weather  and  lack  of  supplies,  as  on  all 
'after  occasions,  proved  the   King's  worst  enemies. 
Glyndwr  and  his  people  lay  snug  within  the  Snow- 
don  mountains,  and  by  October  17th,  Henry,  having 
set  free  at  Shrewsbury  a  few  prisoners  he  brought 
with  him,  was  back  at  Worcester.      Here  he   de- 
clared the  estates  of  Owen  to  be  confiscated  and  be- 
stowed them  on  his  own  half-brother,  Beaufort,  Earl 
of  Somerset.     He  little  thought  at  that  time  how 
many  years  would  elapse  before  an  English  noble- 
man  could   venture   to   take   actual   possession    of 
Sycherth  or  Glyndyfrdwy. 

Upon  November  20th  a  general  pardon  was 
offered  to  all  Welsh  rebels  who  would  come  in  and 
report  themselves  at  Shrewsbury  or  Chester,  the  now 
notorious  Owen  always  excepted,  and  on  this  occa- 
sion Griffith  Hanmer,  his  brother-in-law,  and  one  of 
the  famous  Norman-Welsh  family  of  Pulestone  had 
the  honour  of  being  fellow-outlaws  with  their  chief. 
Their  lands  also  were  confiscated  and  bestowed  on 
two  of  the  King's  friends.  It  is  significant,  however, 
of  the  anxiety  regarding  the  future  which  Glyndwr's 
movement  had  inspired,  that  the  grantee  of  the 
Hanmer  estates,  which  all  lay  in  Flint,  was  very  glad 
to  come  to  terms  with  a  member  of  the  family  and 
take  a  trifling  annuity  instead  of  the  doubtful  privi- 
lege of  residence  and  rent  collecting.  The  castle  of 
Carnarvon  was  strongly  garrisoned.  Henry,  Prince 
of  Wales,  then  only  in  his  fourteenth  year,  was  left 
at  Chester  with  a  suitable  council  and  full  powers  of 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  129 

exercising  clemency  toward  all  Welshmen  lately  in 
arms,  other  than  the  three  notable  exceptions  already 
mentioned,  who  should  petition  for  it.  Few,  how- 
ever, if  any,  seem  to  have  taken  the  trouble  to  do 
even  thus  much.  And  in  the  meantime  the  King, 
still  holding  the  Welsh  rebellion  as  of  no  great 
moment,  spent  the  winter  in  London  entertaining  the 
Greek  Emperor  and  haggling  with  the  King  of  France 
about  the  return  of  the  money  paid  to  Richard  as 
the  dower  of  his  child-queen,  Isabella  who  was  still 
detained  in  London  as  in  some  sort  a  hostage. 

Parliament  sat  early  in  140 1  and  was  by  no  means 
as  confident  as  Henry  seemed  to  be  regarding  the 
state  of  Wales,  a  subject  which  formed  the  chief 
burden  of  their  debate.  Even  here,  perhaps,  the 
gravity  of  the  Welsh  movement  was  not  entirely 
realised  ;  the  authorities  were  angry  but-  scarcely 
alarmed  ;  no  one  remembered  the  old  Welsh  wars  or 
the  traditional  defensive  tactics  of  the  Welsh,  and 
the  fact  of  Henry  having  swept  through  the  Princi- 
pality unopposed  gave  rise  to  misconceptions.  There 
was  no  question,  however,  about  their  hostility  to- 
wards Wales,  and  in  the  early  spring  of  this  year  the 
following  ordinances  for  the  future  government  of 
the  Principality  were  published. 

(i)     All  lords  of  castles  in  Wales  were  to  have  them    \ 
properly  secured  against  assault  on  pain  of  forfeiture. 

(2)  No  Welshman  in  future  was  to  be  a  Justice, 
Chamberlain,  Chancellor,  Seneschal,  Receiver,  Chief 
Forester,  Sheriff,  Escheator,  Constable  of  a  castle,  or 
Keeper  of  rolls  or  records.  All  these  offices  were  to  be 
held  by  Englishmen,  who  were  to  reside  at  their  posts. 


130  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

(3)  The  people  of  a  district  were  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  all  breaches  of  the  peace  in  their 
neighbourhood  and  were  to  be  answerable  in  their 
own  persons  for  all  felons,  robbers,  and  trespassers 
found  therein. 

(4)  All  felons  and  evildoers  were  to  be  immedi- 
ately handed  over  to  justice  and  might  not  be 
sheltered  on  any  pretext  by  any  lord  in  any  castle. 

(5)  The  Welsh  people  were  to  be  taxed  and 
charged  with  the  expense  of  repairing  and  maintain- 
ing walls,  gates,  and  castles  in  North  Wales  when 
wilfully  destroyed,  and  for  refurnishing  them  and 
keeping  them  in  order,  at  the  discretion  of  the  owner, 
for  a  term  not  exceeding  three  years,  except  under 
special  orders  from  the  King. 

(6)  No  meetings  of  Welsh  were  to  be  held  with- 
out the  permission  of  the  chief  officers  of  the  lord- 
ship, who  were  to  be  held  responsible  for  any  damage 
or  riot  that  ensued. 

The  gifts  called  "  Cwmwrth,"  too,  exacted  by  collec- 
tion for  the  maintenance  of  the  bards  or  minstrels, 
were  strictly  interdicted.  Adam  of  Usk,  one  of  the 
few  lay  chroniclers  of  this  period,  was  himself  present 
at  the  Parliament  of  1401  and  heard  **  many  harsh 
things  "  to  be  put  in  force  against  the  Welsh  :  among 
others, ''  that  they  should  not  marry  with  English,  nor 
get  them  wealth,  nor  dwell  in  England."  Also  that 
the  men  of  the  Marches  **  might  use  reprisals  against 
Welshmen  who  were  their  debtors  or  who  had  in- 
jured them,"  a  truce  for  a  week  being  first  granted  to 
give  them  the  opportunity  of  making  amends. 

It  was  much  easier,  however,  to  issue  commands 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  131 

and  instructions  than  to  carry  them  out.  The  King 
seems  to  have  felt  this,  and  leant  strongly  towards  a 
greater  show  of  clemency.  But  there  was  sufficient 
panic  in  parts  of  England  to  override  the  royal 
scruples  or  common  sense,  and  so  far  as  intentions 
went  the  Welsh  were  to  be  shown  little  mercy. 

Owen  all  this  time  had  been  lying  quietly  in  the 
valley  of  the  upper  Dee,  preparing  for  still  further 
endeavours.  The  short  days  and  the  long  nights  of 
winter  saw  the  constant  passing  to  and  fro  of  in- 
numerable sympathisers  through  the  valleys  and 
over  the  hills  of  both  North  and  South  Wales,  and  a 
hundred  harps,  that  had  long  been  faint  or  silent, 
were  sounding  high  to  the  glories  of  the  unforgotten 
heroes  of  Old  Wales.  Mere  hatred  of  Henry  and 
tenderness  for  Richard's  memory  were  giving  place 
to  ancient  dreams  of  Cambrian  independence  and  a 
fresh  burst  of  hatred  for  the  Saxon  yoke.  Owen, 
too  strong  now  to  fear  anything  from  isolated  efforts 
of  Lord  Marchers,  seems  to  have  held  high  festival 
at  Glyndyfrdwy  during  the  winter,  and  with  the  as- 
sumption of  princely  rank  to  have  kept  up  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  princely  state.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  Grey  to  the  north  and  the  lords  of  Chirk 
upon  the  east,  it  is  probable  that  nearly  everyone 
around  him  was  by  now  either  his  friend  or  in 
wholesome  dread  of  his  displeasure. 

Shropshire  was  panic-stricken  for  the  time.  Hot- 
spur was  busy  at  Denbigh,  and  Glyndwr,  among  his 
native  hills,  had  it,  no  doubt,  very  much  his  own  way 
during  the  winter  months,  and  made  full  use  of  them 
to  push  forward  his  interests.     His  property,  it  will 


132  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400- 

be  remembered,  had  been  confiscated.  But  so  far 
from  anyone  venturing  to  take  possession  of  Glyndy- 
frdwy,  its  halls,  we  are  told,  at  this  time  rang  with 
revelry  and  song,  while  Owen,  in  the  intervals  of 
laying  his  plans  and  organising  his  campaign  for  the 
ensuing  summer,  received  the  homage  of  the  bards 
who  flocked  from  every  part  of  the  principality  to 
throw  their  potent  influence  into  the  scale.  How- 
ever much  Glyndwr's  vanity  and  ambition  may  have 
been  stirred  by  the  enthusiasm  which  surged  around 
him,  and  the  somewhat  premature  exultation  that 
with  wild  rhapsody  hailed  him  as  the  restorer  of 
Welsh  independence,\^he  never  for  a  moment  lost 
sight  of  the  stern  issues  he  had  to  face,  or  allowed 
himself  to  be  flattered  into  overconfidence.  Cour- 
age and  coolness,  perseverance  and  sagacity,  were 
his  leading  attributes.. ";>.  He  well  knew  that  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  bards  was  of  vital  consequence  to  the 
first  success  of  his  undertaking.  It  is  of  little  mo- 
ment whether  he  shared  the  superstitions  of  those 
who  sang  of  the  glorious  destiny  for  which  fate  had 
marked  him  or  of  those  who  listened  to  the  singing. 
Kit  is  not  likely  that  a  man  who  showed  himself  so 
I  able  and  so  cool  a  leader  would  fail  to  take  full  ad- 
vantage of  forces  which  at  this  early  stage  were  so 
supremely  valuables 

(  He  knew  his  countrymen  and  he  knew  the  world, 
and  when  Wales  was  quivering  with  excitement  be- 
neath the  interpretation  of  ancient  prophecies  bruit- 
ed hither  and  thither  and  enlarged  upon  by  poetic 
and  patriotic  fancy,  Glyndwr  was  certainly  not  the 
man  to  damp  their  ardour  by  any  display  of  criticism. y 


1401]  Glyndwr  and  Lord  Grey  133 

Already  the  great  news  from  Wales  had  thrilled 
the  heart  of  many  a  Welshman  poring  over  his 
books  at  the  university,  or  following  the  plough-tail 
over  English  fallows.  They  heard  of  friends  and 
relatives  selling  their  stock  to  buy  arms  and  harness, 
and  in  numbers  that  yet  more  increased  as  the  year 
advanced,  began  to  steal  home  again,  all  filled  with 
a  rekindled  glow  of  patriotism  that  a  hundred  years 
of  union  and,  in  their  cases,  long  mingling  with  the 
Saxon  had  not  quenched.  Oxford,  particularly,  sent 
many  recruits  to  Owen,  and  this  is  not  surprising, 
seeing  how  combative  was  the  Oxford  student  of 
that  time  and  how  clannish  his  proclivities.  Adam 
of  Usk,  who  has  told  us  a  good  deal  about  Glyn- 
dwr's  insurrection,  was  himself  an  undergraduate 
some  dozen  years  before  it  broke  out,  and  has  given 
us  a  brief  and  vivid  picture  of  the  ferocious  fights 
upon  more  or  less  racial  lines,  in  which  the  Welsh 
chronicler  not  only  figured  prominently  himself,  but 
was  an  actual  leader  of  his  countrymen ;  "  was  in- 
dicted," he  tells  us,  "  for  felonious  riot  and  narrowly 
escaped  conviction,  being  tried  by  a  jury  empanelled 
before  a  King's  Judge.  After  this  I  feared  the 
King  hitherto  unknown  to  me  and  put  hooks  in  my 
jaws."  <These  particular  riots  were  so  formidable 
that  the  scholars  for  the  most  part,  after  several  had 
been  slain,  departed  to  their  respective  countries,  y 

In  the  very  next  year,  however,  "  Thomas 
Speke,  Chaplain,  with  a  multitude  of  other  male- 
factors, appointing  captains  among  them,  rose  up 
against  the  peace  of  the  King  and  sought  after  all 
the   Welshmen    abiding   and    studying   in    Oxford, 


134  Owen  Glyndwr  [1400-1401] 

shooting  arrows  after  them  in  divers  streets  and  lanes 
as  they  went,  crying  out,  '  War  !  war!  war!  Sle  Sle 
Sle  the  Welsh  doggys  and  her  whelpys ;  ho  so 
looketh  out  of  his  house  he  shall  in  good  sooth  be 
dead,'  and  certain  persons  they  slew  and  others  they 
grievously  wounded,  and  some  of  the  Welshmen, 
who  bowed  their  knees  to  abjure  the  town,"  they 
led  to  the  gates  with  certain  indignities  not  to  be 
repeated  to  ears  polite.  (We  may  also  read  the  names 
of  the  different  halls  which  were  broken  into,  and  of 
Welsh  scholars  who  were  robbed  of  their  books  and 
chattels,  including  in  some  instances  their  harps.  ^ 

It  is  not  altogether  surprising,  therefore,  that 
Welsh  Oxonians  should  have  hailed  the  opportunity 
of  Owen's  rising  to  pay  off  old  scores.  We  have  the 
names  of  some  of  those  who  joined  him  in  an  orig- 
inal paper,  in  the  Rolls  of  Parliament,  which  fully 
corroborates  the  notice  of  this  event ;  Howel  Kethin 
(Gethin)  "  bachelor  of  law,  duelling  in  Myghell  Hall, 
Oxenford,"  was  one  of  them  ;  "  Maister  Morres  Stove, 
of  the  College  of  Excestre,"  was  another,  while 
David  Brith,  John  Lloid,  and  several  others  are  men- 
tioned by  name.  One  David  Leget  seems  to  have 
been  regarded  as  such  an  addition  that  Owen  him- 
self sent  a  special  summons  that  he  "  schuld  com  till 
hym  and  be  his  man."  So  things  in  Wales  went 
from  bad  to  worse  ;  Glyndwr's  forces  gaining  rapidly 
in  strength  and  numbers,  and  actively  preparing  in 

\  various  quarters  for  the  operations  that  marked  the 

\  open  season  of  1401. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OWEN  AND  THE  PERCYS 
140 1 

NORTH  WALES,  as  already  mentioned,  was 
being  now  administered  by  the  young  Prince 
Henry,  with  the  help  of  a  council  whose 
headquarters  were  at  Chester.  Under  their  orders, 
and  their  most  active  agent  at  this  time,  was  Henry 
Percy,  the  famous  Hotspur,  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland.  He  was  Justice  of  North  Wales 
and  Constable  of  the  castles  of  Chester,  Flint,  Con- 
way, Denbigh,  and  Carnarvon,  and  had  recently 
been  granted  the  whole  island  of  Anglesey.  Hot- 
spur, for  obvious  reasons,  made  his  headquarters  at 
the  high-perched  and  conveniently  situated  fortress 
of  Denbigh,  which  Lacy,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  had  built 
at  the  Edwardian  conquest.  Its  purpose  was  to 
overawe  the  lower  portion  of  the  Vale  of  Clwyd, 
which  had  fallen  to  Lacy's  share  at  the  great  division 
of  plunder  that  signalised  the  downfall  of  the  last  of 
the  Welsh  native  Princes.  The  lordship  of  Den- 
bigh, it  may  be  remarked  parenthetically,  since  the 
fact   becomes  one   of   some    significance   later  on, 

135 


136  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

belonged  at  this  time  to  the  Mortimers,  into  which 
famous  family  Henry  Percy  had  married.  The  lat- 
ter, to  whose  house  the  King  was  under  such  great 
obligations,  was  the  leading  exponent  of  his  master's 
policy  in  Wales,  both  in  matters  of  peace  and  war, 
and  had  been  sufficiently  loaded  with  favours  to  at 
least  equalise  the  balance  of  mutual  indebtedness 
between  the  houses  of  Northumberland  and  Lan- 
caster. 

Shakespeare's  fancy  and  dramatic  instinct  has 
I  played  sad  havoc  in  most  people's  minds  with  the 
\  mutual  attitude  of  some  of  the  leading  figures  of 
this  stormy  period.  It  has  been  sufficiently  dis- 
proved by  his  biographers,  if  not,  indeed,  by  the 
facts  of  general  history,  that  Henry  of  Monmouth 
was  no  more  the  dissipated,  light-headed  trifler  and 
heartless  brawler  than  was  Glyndwr  the  half-barba- 
rous and  wholly  boastful  personage  that  Shake- 
speare has  placed  upon  his  stage.  The  King,  it  will 
be  remembered,  is  depicted,  in  the  play  that  bears 
his  name,  as  bewailing  with  embittered  eloquence 
the  contrast  between  the  characters  of  Hotspur  and 
his  own  son,  and  making  vain  laments  that  the  in- 
fants had  not  been  changed  while  they  lay  side  by 
side  in  their  cradles.  It  is  something  of  a  shock  to 
recall  the  fact  that  Henry  Percy  was  a  little  older 
than  the  distraught  father  himself,  and  a  contempo- 
rary, not  of  the  Prince,  but  of  the  King,  who  was 
now  about  thirty-five,  and  many  years  younger  than 
Glyndwr. 

Prince  Henry,  even  now,  though  not  yet  fourteen, 
seems  to  have  had  a  mind  of  his  own.     He  had,  in 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  137 

truth,  to  face  early  the  stern  facts  and  hard  realities 
of  a  life  such  as  would  have  sobered  and  matured  a 
less  naturally  precocious  and  intelligent  nature  than 
his.  His  youth  was  not  spent  in  frivolity  and  de- 
bauchery in  London,  but  upon  the  Welsh  border, 
for  the  most  part,  amid  the  clash  of  arms  or  the 
more  trying  strain  of  political  responsibility,  aggra- 
vated by  constant  want  of  funds.  One  might  almost 
say  that  Henry  of  Monmouth's  whole  early  man- 
hood was  devoted  to  a  fierce  and  ceaseless  struggle 
with  Glyndwr  for  that  allegiance  of  the  Welsh  people 
to  which  both  laid  claim.  In  later  years,  as  we  shall 
see,  it  was  the  tenacity  and  soldier-like  qualities  of 
the  Prince  that  succeeded  where  veteran  warriors 
had  failed,  and  that  ultimately  broke  the  back  of 
Giyndwr's  long  and  fierce  resistance.  The  King,  far 
from  deploring  the  conduct  or  character  of  his  valiant 
son,  always  treated  him  with  the  utmost  confidence, 
and  invariably  speaks  of  him  in  his  correspondence 
with  unreserved  affection  and  pride.  He  was  of 
"spare  make,"  say  the  chroniclers  who  knew  him, 
**  tall  and  well  proportioned,  exceeding  the  stature  of 
men,  beautiful  of  visage,  and  small  of  bone."  He 
was  of  **  marvellous  strength,  pliant  and  passing 
swift  of  limb ;  and  so  trained  to  feats  of  agility  by 
discipline  and  exercise,  that  with  one  or  two  of  his 
lords  he  could  on  foot  readily  give  chase  to  a  deer 
without  hounds,  bow,  or  sling,  and  catch  the  fleetest 
of  the  herd." 

Either  from  a  feeling  that  Hotspur  was  too  strong, 
or  that  popular  fervour  had  perhaps  been  sufficiently 
aroused  to  the  north  of  the  Dovey,  Glyndwr  now 


< 


138  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

turned  his  attention  to  the  southern  and  midland 
districts  of  the  country.  But  before  following  him 
there  I  must  say  something  of  the  incident  which 
was  of  chief  importance  at  the  opening  of  this  year's 
operations. 

Conway  will  probably  be  more  familiar  to  the  gen- 
eral reader  than  any  other  scene  of  conflict  we  shall 
visit  in  this  volume,  from  the  fact  of  its  being  so 
notable  a  landmark  on  the  highway  between  England 
and  Ireland.  The  massive  towers  and  walls  of  the 
great  castle  which  Edward  the  First's  architect, Henry 
de  Elfreton,  raised  here  at  the  conquest  of  Wales,  still 
throw  their  shadows  on  the  broad  tidal  river  that 
laps  their  feet.  The  little  town  which  lies  beneath 
its  ramparts  and  against  the  shore  is  still  bound  fast 
within  a  girdle  of  high,  embattled  walls,  strengthened 
at  measured  intervals  by  nearly  thirty  towers,  and 
presenting  a  complete  picture  of  medieval  times  such 
as  in  all  Britain  is  unapproached,  while  immediately 
above  it,  if  anything  were  needed  to  give  further 
distinction  to  a  scene  in  itself  so  eloquent  of  a 
storied  past,  rise  to  heaven  the  northern  bulwarks  of 
the  Snowdon  range.  Here,  in  the  early  spring  of 
this  year,  within  the  castle,  lay  a  royal  garrison 
closely  beset  by  the  two  brothers,  WiUiam  and  Rhys 
ap  Tudor,  of  the  ever  famous  stock  of  Penmynydd 
in  Anglesey.  They  had  both  been  excluded  from 
the  King's  pardon,  together  with  Glyndwr,  among 
whose  lieutenants  they  were  to  prove  themselves  at 
this  period  the  most  formidable  to  the  English  power. 

Conway  Castle,  as  may  readily  be  believed  by 
those  familiar  with  it,  was  practically  impregnable. 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  139 

so  long  as  a  score  or  two  of  armed  men  with  suffi- 
cient to  sustain  life  and  strength  remained  inside  it. 
The  Tudors,  however,  achieved  by  stealth  what  the 
force  at  their  command  could  not  at  that  time  have 
accomplished  by  other  means.  For  while  the  garri- 
son were  at  church,  a  partisan  of  the  Glyndwr  faction 
was  introduced  into  the  castle  in  the  disguise  of  a 
carpenter,  and  after  killing  the  warders  he  admitted 
William  ap  Tudor  and  some  forty  men.  They  found 
a  fair  stock  of  provisions  within  the  castle,  though, 
as  will  be  seen,  it  proved  in  the  end  insufficient. 
The  main  body  of  the  besiegers  retired  under  Rhys 
ap  Tudor  to  the  hills  overlooking  the  town  to  await 
developments.  They  were  not  long  left  in  suspense, 
for  the  news  of  the  seizure  of  the  castle  roused  Hot- 
spur to  activity,  and  he  hastened  to  the  spot  with  all 
the  men  that  he  could  collect.  Conway  being  one 
of  Edward's  fortified  and  chartered  EngHsh  towns, 
the  inhabitants  were  presumably  loyal  to  the  King. 
But  Hotspur  brought  five  hundred  archers  and  men- 
at-arms  and  great  engines,  including  almost  certainly 
some  of  the  primitive  cannon  of  the  period,  to  bear 
on  the  castle.  William  ap  Tudor  and  his  forty  men 
laughed  at  their  efforts  till  Hotspur,  despairing  of 
success  by  arms,  went  on  to  Carnarvon,  leaving  his 
whole  force  behind,  to  try  the  effect  of  starvation  on 
the  garrison. 

At  Carnarvon  Henry  Percy  held  his  sessions  as 
Justice  of  North  Wales,  openly  proclaiming  a  pardon 
in  the  name  of  his  master  the  Prince  to  all  who 
would  come  in  and  give  up  their  arms.  From  here, 
too,  he  sent  word  in  a  letter,  still  extant,  that  the 


140  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

commons  of  Carnarvon  and  Merioneth  had  come  be- 
fore him,  thanking  the  King  and  Prince  for  their 
clemency  and  offering  to  pay  the  same  dues  as  they 
had  paid  King  Richard.  He  also  declared  that  the 
northern  districts,  with  the  exception  of  the  forces 
at  Conway,  were  rapidly  coming  back  to  their  alleg- 
iance. How  sanguine  and  premature  Hotspur  was 
in  this  declaration  will  soon  be  clear  enough. 

In  the  meantime  much  damage  had  been  done  to 
Conway  town  by  both  besiegers  and  besieged.  The 
latter  seem  to  have  overestimated  the  resources  they 
found  within  the  castle,  for  by  the  end  of  April  they 
were  making  overtures  for  terms.  William  ap  Tudor 
offered  on  behalf  of  his  followers  to  surrender  the 
place  if  a  full  and  unconditional  pardon  should  be 
granted  to  all  inside.  Hotspur  was  inclined  to  accept 
this  proposal,  but  the  council  at  Chester  and  the  King 
himself,  getting  word  of  his  intention,  objected,  and 
with  justice,  to  such  leniency.  So  the  negotiations 
drag  on.  The  King  in  a  letter  to  his  son  remarks 
that,  as  the  castle  fell  by  the  carelessness  of  Henry 
Percy's  people,  that  same  "  dear  and  faithful  cousin  " 
ought  to  see  that  it  was  retaken  without  concessions 
to  those  holding  it,  and,  moreover,  pay  all  the  ex- 
penses out  of  his  own  pocket.  In  any  case  he  urges 
that,  if  he  himself  is  to  pay  the  wages  and  mainten- 
ance of  the  besieging  force,  and  supply  their  impos- 
ing siege  train,  he  would  like  to  see  something  more 
substantial  for  the  outlay  than  a  full  and  free  pardon 
to  the  rebels  who  had  caused  it.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning of  July  before  an  agreement  was  finally  arrived 
at,  to  the  effect  that  if  nine  of  the  garrison,  not 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  141 

specified,  were  handed  over  to  justice,  the  rest 
should  be  granted  both  their  Hves  and  a  free  pardon. 
The  selection  of  the  nine  inside  the  castle  was  made 
on  a  strange  method,  if  method  it  can  be  called. 
For  the  leaders,  having  made  an  arbitrary  and  privy 
choice  of  the  victims,  had  them  seized  and  bound 
suddenly  in  the  night.  They  were  then  handed  over 
to  Percy's  troops,  who  slaughtered  them  after  the 
usual  brutal  fashion  of  the  time. 

A  second  letter  of  Henry  Percy's  to  the  council 
demonstrates  conclusively  how  seriously  he  had  been 
at  fault  in  his  previous  estimate.  This  time  he 
writes  from  Denbigh  under  date  of  May  17th,  press- 
ing for  the  payment  of  arrears  in  view  of  the  de- 
sperate state  of  North  Wales,  and  further  declaring 
that  if  he  did  not  receive  some  money  shortly  he 
must  resign  his  position  to  others  and  leave  the 
country  by  the  end  of  the  month.  But  Hotspur 
rose  superior  to  his  threats  ;  for  at  the  end  of  May, 
at  his  own  risk  and  expense,  he  made  an  expedition 
against  a  force  of  Glyndwr's  people  that  were  in  arms 
around  Dolgelly.  He  was  accompanied  by  the  Earl 
of  Arundel  and  Sir  Hugh  Browe,  a  gentleman  of 
Cheshire.  An  action  was  fought  of  an  indecisive 
nature  at  the  foot  of  Cader  Idris,  after  which  Percy 
returned  to  Denbigh.  Finding  here  no  answer  to 
his  urgent  appeal  for  support,  he  threw  up  all  his 
Welsh  appointments  in  disgust  and  left  the  country 
for  the  more  congenial  and  familiar  neighbourhood 
of  the  Scottish  border.  For  he  held  office  here  also, 
being  joined  with  his  father  in  the  wardenship  of 
the  Eastern  Marches  of  Scotland. 


142  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

Hotspur  was  even  now,  at  this  early  stage  and 
with  some  apparent  cause,  in  no  very  good  humour 
with  the  King.  It  is  certain,  too,  that  Glyndwr  at 
this  time  had  some  special  Hking  for  the  Percys, 
though  they  were  his  open  enemies,  and  it  is  almost 
beyond  question  that  they  had  a  personal  interview 
at  some  place  and  date  unknown  during  the  summer. 

Leaving  North  Wales  in  a  seething  and  turbulent 
state,  with  local  partisans  heading  bands  of  insurgents 
(if  men  who  resist  an  usurper  can  be  called  insurgents) 
in  various  parts  of  the  country,  we  must  turn  to 
Owen  and  the  South.  Crossing  the  Dovey,  Glyndwr 
had  sought  the  mountain  range  that  divides  Cardigan 
from  what  is  now  Radnorshire  (then  known  as  the 
district  of  Melenydd),  and  raised  his  standard  upon 
the  rounded  summit  of  Plinlimmon.  It  was  a  fine 
position,  lying  midway  between  North  and  South 
Wales,  within  sight  of  the  sea  and  at  the  same  time 
within  striking  distance  of  the  fertile  districts  of  the 
Centre  and  the  South.  Behind  him  lay  the  populous 
seaboard  strip  of  Ceredigion  created  at  Edward's 
conquest  into  the  county  of  Cardigan.  Before  him 
lay  Radnor,  and  Carmarthen,  and  the  fat  lordships 
of  Brycheiniog,  to  be  welded  later  into  the  modern 
county  of  Brecon.  Along  the  Cardiganshire  coast 
in  Owen's  rear  a  string  of  castles  frowned  out  upon 
the  Irish  Sea,  held,  since  it  was  a  royal  county,  by  the 
constables  of  the  King,  who  were  sometimes  of 
English,  sometimes  of  Welsh,  nationality.  Inland,  as 
far  as  the  Herefordshire  border,  was  a  confused  net- 
work of  lordships,  held  for  the  most  part  direct  from 
the   King  on  feudal   tenure  by  English   or  Anglo- 


1401] 


Owen  and  the  Percys  1 43 


Welsh  nobles,  and  each  dominated  by  one  or  more 
grim  castles  of  prodigious  strength,  against  which  the 
feeble  engines  and  guns  of  those  days  hurled  their 
missiles  with  small  effect.  Some  of  these  were  royal 
or  quasi-royal  property  and  looked  to  the  Crown  for 
their  defence.  The  majority,  however,  had  to  be 
maintained  and  held  by  owners  against  the  King's 
enemies,  subject  to  confiscation  in  case  of  any  de- 
ficiency in  zeal  or  precaution.  Ordinarily  impreg- 
nable though  the  walls  were,  the  garrisons,  as  we  shall 
see,  were  mostly  small,  and  they  were  incapable  of 
making  much  impression  upon  the  surrounding 
country  when  once  it  became  openly  hostile  and 
armed. 

South  Wales  had  as  yet  shown  no  great  disposition 
to  move.  Some  riots  and  bloodshed  at  Abergavenny 
had  been  almost  the  sum  total  of  its  patriotic  activity. 
Now,  however,  that  the  Dragon  Standard  was  actually 
floating  on  Plinlimmon  and  the  already  renowned 
Owen,  with  a  band  of  chosen  followers,  was  calling 
the  South  to  arms,  there  was  no  lack  of  response. 
The  bards  had  been  busy  preparing  the  way  on  the 
south  as  well  as  on  the  north  of  the  Dovey.  In  the 
words  of  Pennant  : 

"  They  animated  the  nation  by  recalling  to  mind  the 
great  exploits  of  their  ancestors,  their  struggles  for 
liberty,  their  successful  contests  with  the  Saxon  and 
Norman  race  for  upwards  of  eight  centuries.  They  re- 
hearsed the  cruelty  of  their  antagonists,  and  did  not 
forget  the  savage  policy  of  the  first  Edward  to  their  pro- 
scribed brethren.  They  brought  before  their  country- 
men  the   remembrance   of   ancient   prophecies.     They 


144  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

showed  the  hero  Glyndwr  to  be  descended  from  the 
ancient  race  of  our  Princes,  and  pronounced  that  in  him 
was  to  be  expected  the  completion  of  our  oracular  Merlin, 
The  band  of  minstrels  now  struck  up.  The  harp,  the 
*  crwth,'  and  the  pipe  filled  up  the  measure  of  enthu- 
siasm which  the  other  had  begun  to  inspire.  They 
rushed  to  battle,  fearless  of  the  event,  like  their  great 
ancestry,  moved  by  the  Druids'  songs,  and  scorned  death 
which  conferred  immortality  in  reward  of  their  valour." 

Glyndwr  now  fell  with  heavy  hand  upon  this 
southern  country,  crossing  the  headwaters  of  the 
Severn  and  the  Wye,  and  pressing  hard  upon  the 
Marches  of  Carmarthen.  The  common  people  rose 
on  every  side  and  joined  the  forces  that  acted 
either  under  his  leadership  or  in  his  name.  Those 
who  did  not  join  him,  as  was  certainly  the  case  with 
a  majority  of  the  upper  class  at  this  early  period, 
had  to  find  refuge  in  the  castles  or  to  fly  to  safer 
regions,  leaving  their  property  at  the  mercy  of  the 
insurgents.  But  a  battle  was  fought  at  the  opening 
of  this  campaign  on  the  summit  of  Mynydd  Hydd- 
gant,  a  hill  in  the  Plinlimmon  group,  that  did  more, 
perhaps,  to  rouse  enthusiasm  for  Glyndwr  than  even 
the  strains  of  the  bards  or  his  own  desolating  marches, 
^^he  Flemings  in  Wales  at  that  time  were  not  con- 
fined to  Western  Pembroke,  but  had  still  strong 
colonies  below  Carmarthen,  in  the  Glamorgan  pro- 
montory of  Gower,  and  some  footing  in  South 
Cardiganshire.  Whether  they  had  actually  felt  the 
hand  of  Glyndwr  upon  their  borders,  or  whether  they 
deemed  it  better  to  take  the  initiative,  they  at  any 
rate  collected  a  force  of  some  fifteen  hundred  men, 


t40i]  Owen  and  the  Percys  145 

and  marching  northward  to  the  Cardigan  mountains, 
surprised  the  Welsh  leader  as  he  was  encamped  on 
the  summit  of  Mynydd  Hyddgant,  with  a  body  of 
less  than  five  hundred  men  around  him.  The 
Flemish  strategy  was  creditable,  seeing  that  it  was 
carried  out  by  slow-witted  and  slow-footed  lowlanders 
against  nimble  mountaineers  and  so  astute  a  chieftain. 
Owen  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  force  thrice  the 
^/number  of  his  own,  and  either  death  or  capture 
seemed  inevitable.  As  the  latter  meant  the  former, 
he  was  not  long  in  choosing  his  course,  and  putting 
himself  at  the  head  of  his  warriors  he  attacked  the 
Flemings  with  such  fury  that  he  and  most  of  his 
band  escaped,  leaving  two  hundred  of  their  enemies 
dead  upon  the  mountain  slope.  This  personal  feat 
of  arms  was  worth  five  thousand  men  to  Owen. 
It  was  all  that  was  wanted  to  fill  the  measure  of  his 
prestige  and  decide  every  wavering  Welshman  in  his 
favour.  ""^ 

For  this  whole  summer  Glyndwr  was  fighting  and 
ravaging  throughout  South  and  Mid- Wales.  The 
lands  of  the  English  as  well  as  of  those  Welshmen 
who  would  not  join  him  were  ruthlessly  harried. 
Stock  was  carried  off,  homesteads  were  burned,  even 
castles  here  and  there  were  taken,  when  ill-provis- 
ioned and  undermanned.  New  Radnor  under  Sir 
John  Grendor  was  stormed  and  the  sixty  defenders 
hung  upon  the  ramparts  by  way  of  encouragement 
to  others  to  yield.  The  noble  abbey  of  Cwmhir 
too,  whose  ruins  still  slowly  crumble  in  a  remote 
Radnorshire  valley,  felt  Glyndwr's  pitiless  hand,  be- 
ing utterly  destroyed.     His  animosity  to  the  Church 


146  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

was  intelligible,  though  for  his  method  of  showing  it 
nothing  indeed  can  be  said.  The  Welsh  Church, 
though  its  personnel  was  largely  native,  was,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Franciscan  order,  mostly  hostile 
to  Glyndwr  and  upon  the  side  of  the  English  Gov- 
ernment. Bards  and  priests,  moreover,  were  irrecon- 
cilable enemies.  The  latter  had  in  some  sort 
usurped  the  position  the  former  had  once  held,  and 
now  the  patron  and  the  hero  of  the  bards,  who  were 
once  more  lifting  up  their  heads,  was  not  likely  to  be 
acceptable  to  the  clergy.  This,  however,  would  be 
a  poor  excuse  for  an  iconoclasm  that  would  set  a 
Welsh  torch  to  noble  foundations  built  and  endowed 
for  the  most  part  with  Welsh  money. 

Glyndwr  in  the  meantime  swept  down  the  Severn 
valley,  burning  on  his  way  the  small  town  of  Mont- 
gomery, and  coming  only  to  a  halt  where  the  border 
borough  of  Welshpool  lay  nestling  between  the  high 
hills  through  which  the  Severn  rushes  out  into  the 
fat  plains  of  Shropshire. 

The  great  Red  Castle  of  Powys,  then  called 
"  Pole,"  overlooked  in  those  days,  as  it  does  in 
these,  the  town  it  sheltered.  The  famous  Shrop- 
shire family  of  Charlton  were  then,  and  for  genera- 
tions afterwards,  its  lords  and  owners.  From  its 
walls  Glyndwr  and  his  forces  were  now  driven  back 
by  Edward  Charlton  with  his  garrison  and  the  levies 
of  the  neighbourhood,  which  remained  throughout 
the  war  staunch  to  its  lord  and  the  King.  The  re- 
pulse of  Owen,  however,  was  not  accomplished  with- 
out much  hard  fighting  and  the  destruction  of  all 
the  suburbs  of  the  town. 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  147 

But  these  sallies  from  castles  and  walled  towns 
could  do  little  more  than  protect  their  inmates. 
Mid-  and  South  Wales  literally  bristled  with  feudal 
castles  containing  garrisons  of,  for  the  most  part,  less 
than  a  hundred  men.  These  scattered  handfuls  were 
unable  to  leave  their  posts  and  act  in  unison,  and 
when  the  abandonment  of  North  Wales  by  Hotspur 
gave  further  confidence  to  those  who  had  risen,  or 
would  like  to  rise,  for  Glyndwr,  the  greater  part  of 
South  Wales  fell  into  line  with  the  Centre  and  the 
North.  From  the  border  to  the  sea  Owen  was  now, 
so  far  as  the  open  country  was  concerned,  irresistible. 
Nor  was  it  only  within  the  bounds  of  Wales  that 
men  who  were  unfriendly  to  Glyndwr  had  cause  to 
tremble.  The  rapid  progress  of  his  arms  had  already 
spread  terror  along  the  border,  and  created  some- 
thing like  a  panic  even  in  England.  The  idea  of  a 
Welsh  invasion  spread  to  comparatively  remote 
parts,  and  urgent  letters  carried  by  hard-riding  mes- 
sengers went  hurrying  to  the  King  from  beleaguered 
Marchers  and  scared  abbots,  beseeching  him  to  come 
in  person  to  their  rescue. 

All  this  happened  in  August.  As  early  as  the 
preceding  June,  when  Conway  was  in  Welsh  hands, 
the  King  had  meditated  a  second  invasion  in  person, 
and  had  issued  summonses  to  the  sheriffs  of  fourteen 
counties  to  meet  him  at  Worcester,  but  the  ap- 
proaching surrender  of  Conway  and  the  optimistic 
reports  from  Wales  that  met  him  as  he  came  west 
turned  him  from  his  purpose.  There  was  no  optim- 
ism now  ;  all  was  panic  and  the  King  was  really  com- 
ing.    The  Prince  of   Wales  in  the   meantime  was 


148  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

ordered  forward  with  the  levies  of  the  four  border 
counties,  while  the  forces  of  twenty-two  of  the  west- 
ern, southern,  and  midland  shires  were  hurriedly  col- 
lected by  a  proclamation  sent  out  upon  the  1 8th  of 
September. 

One  reads  with  constant  and  unabated  surprise  of 
the  celerity  with  which  these  great  levies  gathered 
from  all  parts  of  the  country  to  the  appointed  tryst, 
fully  equipped  and  ready  for  a  campaign.  One's 
amazement,  however,  is  sensibly  modified  as  the 
narrative  proceeds  and  discovers  them  after  a  week 
or  two  of  marching  in  an  enemy's  country  reduced 
to  their  last  crust,  upon  the  verge  of  disaster  and 
starvation,  and  leaving  in  their  retiring  tracks  as 
many  victims  as  might  have  fallen  in  quite  a  sharp 
engagement. 

By  the  opening  of  October  the  King  and  Prince 
Henry  had  entered  Wales  with  a  large  army.  The 
proclamation  of  September  the  i8th,  calling  out  the 
forces  of  England,  had  stated  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  able-bodied  men  of  Wales  had  gone  over  to 
Owen.  Now,  however,  as  this  great  host  pushed  its 
way  to  Bangor,  as  had  happened  before,  and  would 
happen  again,  not  a  Welshman  was  to  be  seen. 
On  every  side  were  the  sparse  grain -fields  long 
stripped  of  their  produce,  the  barns  empty,  the 
abundant  pastures  bare  of  the  small  black  cattle  and 
mountain  sheep  with  which  in  times  of  peace  and 
safety  they  were  so  liberally  sprinkled.  On  the  8th 
of  October  the  army  was  at  Bangor,  on  the  9th  at 
Carnarvon,  whose  tremendous  and  impregnable  fort- 
ress John  Bolde  defended  for  the  King  with  about  a 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  149 

hundred  men.  Still  seeing  no  sign  of  an  enemy, 
they  swept  in  aimless  fashion  round  the  western 
edges  of  the  Snowdon  mountains  (for  the  route 
through  them,  which  was  even  then  a  recognised 
one,  would  have  been  too  dangerous),  arriving  in  an 
incredibly  short  space  of  time  in  Cardiganshire, 
where  the  King  called  a  halt  at  the  great  and  his- 
toric abbey  of  Ystradfflur  or  Strata  Florida. 

The  weather  for  a  wonder  favoured  the  English, 
and  we  might  be  excused  for  giving  our  imagination 
play  for  a  moment  and  painting  in  fancy  the  gor- 
geous sight  that  the  chivalry  of  half  England,  unsoiled 
by  time  or  tempests  or  war,  with  its  glinting  steel, 
its  gay  colours,  its  flaunting  pennons,  shining  in  the 
October  sun,  must  have  displayed  as  it  wound  in  a 
long,  thin  train  through  those  famiHar  and  matchless 
scenes.  The  great  Cistercian  house  of  Ystradfiflur 
had  shared  with  Conway  in  olden  days  the  honour 
of  both  making  and  preserving  the  records  of  the 
Principality.  Around  the  building  was  a  cemetery 
shaded  by  forty  wide-spreading  and  venerable  yew 
trees.  Beneath  their  shade  lay  the  bones  of  eleven 
Welsh  Princes  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
and  perhaps  those  of  the  greatest  Welsh  poet  of  the 
age,  Dafydd  ab  Gwilim.  Henry  cared  for  none  of 
these  things.  He  allowed  the  abbey  to  be  gutted  and 
plundered,  not  sparing  even  the  sacred  vessels.  He 
turned  the  monks  out  on  to  the  highway,  under  the 
plea  that  two  or  three  of  them  had  favoured  Owen, 
and  filled  up  the  measure  of  desecration  by  stabling 
his  horses  at  the  high  altar. 

Meanwhile,  Owen  and  his  nimble  troops  began  to 


150  Owen  Glyndwr  [HOi 

show  themselves  in  Cardiganshire,  harrying  the  flanks 
and  rear  and  outposts  of  the  royal  army,  cutting  off 
supplies,  and  causing  much  discomfort  and  consider- 
able loss,  including  the  v/hole  camp  equipage  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales. 

Henry  did  his  best  to  bring  Owen  to  action,  but 
the  Welsh  chieftain  was  much  too  wary  to  waste  his 
strength  on  a  doubtful  achievement  which  hunger 
would  of  a  certainty  accomplish  for  him  within  a  few 
days.     An  eminent  gentleman  of  the  country,  one 
Llewelyn  ab  Griffith  Vychan  of  Cayo,  comes  upon 
the  scene  at  this  point  and  at  the  expense  of  his 
head  relieves  the  tedium  of  this  brief  and  ineffect- 
ual campaign  with  a  dramatic  incident.     His  posi- 
tion,   we    are    told,    was    so   considerable    that    he 
\    consumed  in  his  house  no  less  than  sixteen  casks  of 
I   wine  a  year  ;  but  his  patriotism  rose  superior  to  his 
I  rank  and  comforts.     He  offered  to  guide  the  royal 
I  troops  to  a  spot  where  they  might  hope  to  capture 
I  Owen,  but  instead  of  doing  this  he  deliberately  mis- 
I  led  them,  to  their  great  cost,  and  openly  declared 
that  he  had  two  sons  serving  with  Glyndwr,  and  that 
his  own  sympathies  were  with  them  and  their  heroic 
leader.     He  then  bared  his  neck  to  the  inevitable 
axe  of  the  executioner,  and  proved  himself  thereby 
to  be  a  hero,  whose  name,  one  is  glad  to  think,  has 
been  rescued  from  oblivion. 

The  King,  having  attended  to  the  mangling  and 
quartering  of  this  gallant  old  patriot,  crossed  the 
Montgomery  hills  with  his  army  and  hurried  down 
the  Severn  valley,  carrying  with  him,  according  to 
Adam    of    Usk,    a    thousand    Welsh    children   as 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  1 5 1 

captives.  Beyond  this  capture,  he  had  achieved  no- 
thing save  some  further  harrying  of  a  land  already 
sufficiently  harried,  and  the  pillaging  of  an  historic 
and  loyal  monastery. 

Arriving  at  Shrewsbury  before  the  end  of  October 
he  disbanded  his  army,  leaving  behind  him  a  Wales 
rather  encouraged  in  its  rebellious  ways  than  other- 
wise, Glyndwr's  reputation  in  no  whit  diminished,  and 
his  own  and  his  Marchers*  castles  as  hardly  pressed 
and  in  as  sore  a  plight  as  when  he  set  out,  with  so 
much  pomp  and  circumstance,  less  than  a  month  be- 
fore. It  must  have  been  merely  to  save  appearances 
that  he  issued  a  pardon  to  the  *'  Commons  of  Cardi- 
gan," with  leave  to  buy  back  the  lands  that  had  been 
nominally  confiscated.  He  was  also  good  enough  to 
say  that  on  consideration  he  would  allow  them  to 
retain  their  own  language,  which  it  seems  he  had 
tabooed ;  this,  too,  at  a  time  when  the  life  of  no  Eng- 
lishman in  Cardigan  was  safe  a  bowshot  away  from 
the  Norman  castles,  when  the  Welsh  of  the  country 
were  practically  masters  of  the  situation  and  Glyn- 
dwr  virtually  their  Prince. 

Still  Henry  meant  well.  Since  he  was  their  King, 
his  manifest  duty  was  to  reconquer  their  country  for 
the  Crown,  and  this  was  practically  the  task  that  lay 
before  him.  But  then  again  this  is  precisely  what  he 
did  not  seem  for  a  long  time  yet  to  realise.  He  was 
a  good  soldier,  while  for  his  energy  and  bodily 
activity  one  loses  oneself  in  admiration.  But  he  per- 
sistently underrated  the  Welsh  position  and  gave  his 
mind  and  his  energies  to  other  dangers  and  other  in- 
terests which  were  far  less  pressing.     And  when  he 


152  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

did  bend  his  whole  mind  to  the  subjection  of  Glyn- 
dwr,  his  efforts  were  ill-directed,  and  the  conditions 
seemed  to  be  of  a  kind  with  which  he  not  only  could 
not  grapple  but  which  his  very  soul  abhorred.  It 
remained,  as  will  be  seen,  for  the  gallant  son,  whose 
frivolity  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  been  the 
bane  of  his  father's  life,  by  diligence  as  well  as  val- 
our, to  succeed  where  the  other  had  ignominiously 
failed. 

Lord  Rutland  was  now  appointed  to  the  thorny 
office  of  Governor  of  North  Wales,  while  the  Earl 
of  Worcester,  a  Percy  and  uncle  to  Hotspur,  was 
left  to  face  Glyndwr  in  the  southern  portion  of  the 
Principality.  The  winter  of  140 1-2  was  at  hand,  a 
season  when  Owen  and  his  Welshmen  could  fight, 
but  English  armies  most  certainly  could  not  cam- 
paign. The  castles  in  the  Southern  Marches  were 
put  in  fighting  trim,  revictualled  and  reinforced. 
The  chief  of  those  in  the  interior  that  Glyndwr  had 
now  to  face  were  Lampeter,  Cardigan  and  Builth, 
Llandovery  and  Carmarthen,  while  upon  the  border 
the  massive  and  high-perched  towers  of  Montgomery 
and  Powys  looked  down  over  the  still  smoking  vil- 
lages by  the  Severn's  bank,  and  girded  themselves  to 
stem  if  need  be  any  repetition  of  such  disaster. 
Owen  seemed  to  think  that  his  presence  in  the 
North  after  so  long  an  absence  would  be  salutary  ;  so, 
passing  into  Carnarvonshire,  he  appeared  before  its 
stubborn  capital. 

But  John  Bolde  had  been  reinforced  with  men  and 
money,  and,  joined  by  the  burghers  of  the  town,  he 
beat  off  Glyndwr's  attack  and  slew  three  hundred  of 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  153 

his  men.  This  was  early  in  November.  All  North 
Wales  but  the  castles  and  the  walled  towns  around 
them,  where  such  existed,  was  still  friendly  to  Owen. 
The  chief  castles  away  from  the  English  border, 
Criccieth,  Harlech,  Carnarvon,  Conway,  Snowdon 
(Dolbadarn),  Rhuddlan,  and  Beaumaris,  complete  the 
list  of  those  in  royal  keeping  and  may  be  readily 
reckoned  up,  unlike  those  of  South  Wales,  whose 
name  was  legion  ;  while  Denbigh  and  Ruthin  were 
the  only  Marcher  strongholds,  apart  from  those  which 
were  in  immediate  touch  with  Salop  and  Cheshire. 
Now  it  so  happened  that,  before  most  of  the  events 
narrated  in  this  chapter  had  taken  place,  before,  in- 
deed. Hotspur  had  retired  in  such  seeming  petulance 
from  North  Wales  during  the  preceding  summer, 
he  had  contrived  a  meeting  with  Glyndwr.  The 
scene  of  the  interview  is  not  known  ;  that  it  occurred, 
however,  is  not  merely  noted  by  the  chroniclers,  but 
Glyndwr's  attitude  in  connection  with  it  is  referred 
to  in  the  State  papers.  A  council  called  in  Novem- 
ber, while  Owen  was  making  his  attempt  on  Car- 
narvon, has  upon  its  minutes,  "  To  know  the  king's 
will  about  treaty  with  Glyndwr  to  return  to  his 
allegiance  seeing  his  good  intentions  relating  there- 
to." In  the  interview  with  Percy,  Owen  is  said  to 
have  declared  that  he  was  willing  to  submit,  provided 
that  his  life  should  be  spared  and  his  property  guar- 
anteed to  him.  Later  in  the  year,  as  a  well-known 
original  letter  of  the  period  affirms,  *' Jankyn  Tyby 
of  the  North  Countre  bringeth  letteres  owt  of  the 
North  Countre  to  Owen  as  thei  demed  from  HenT  son 
Percy." 


154  Owen  Glyndwr  [hoi 

In  answer  Owen  expressed  his  affection  for  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland  and  the  confidence  he  felt 
in  him.  The  King  was  then  informed  of  the  pro- 
ceedings, and  with  his  consent  a  messenger  was  sent 
from  Earl  Percy  to  Mortimer,  whose  sister,  as  Hot- 
spur's wife,  was  his  daughter-in-law.  Through  the 
medium  of  Mortimer,  soon  to  become  so  closely 
allied  to  Glyndwr,  the  latter  is  reported  to  have  de- 
clared his  willingness  for  peace,  protesting  that  he 
was  not  to  blame  for  the  havoc  wrought  in  Wales, 
and  that  he  had  been  deprived  of  his  patrimony, 
meaning  no  doubt  the  northern  sHce  of  Glyndyfrdwy 
which  Grey,  after  being  defeated  at  law,  had  annexed 
by  force,  with  connivance  of  the  King's  council. 
He  added  that  he  would  readily  meet  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland  on  the  English  border,  as  was  re- 
quired of  him,  but  that  he  feared  outside  treachery 
to  his  person,  as  a  man  who  had  made  such  a  host 
of  enemies  may  well  have  done.  He  also  declared 
that,  if  he  came  to  Shropshire,  the  Commons  would 
raise  a  clamour  and  say  that  he  came  to  destroy  all 
those  who  spoke  English.  That  Hotspur  had  seen 
Glyndwr  earlier  in  the  summer  is  distinctly  stated  by 
Hardyng,  who  was  Hotspur's  own  page.  The  fact 
that  Percy  did  not  take  the  opportunity  to  treach- 
jCrously  seize  the  Welsh  chieftain  was  afterwards 
imade  one  of  the  grievances  urged  by  the  King  when 
;ne  had  other  really  serious  ones  against  his  old 
comrade.  It  may  well,  however,  be  suspected  that 
some  of  these  mysterious  overtures  in  which  the 
Percys  and  Mortimer  figured  so  prominently  con- 
tained   the   germs   of    the   alliance    that    followed 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  155 

later  between  Glyndwr  and  the  two  great  English 
houses. 

No  such  suspicions,  however,  were  as  yet  in  the 
air,  and  Glyndwr  retired,  with  his  captains  and  his 
bards,  into  winter  quarters  at  Glyndyfrdwy.  Here, 
through  the  short  days  and  long  nights,  the  sounds 
of  song  and  revelry  sounded  in  the  ancient  Welsh 
fashion  above  the  tumbling  breakers  of  the  Dee. 
The  very  accessibility  of  the  spot  to  the  strong 
border  castles  showed  the  reality  at  this  time  of 
Owen's  power.  The  great  pile  of  Chirk  was  not  a 
dozen  miles  off,  Dinas  Bran  was  within  easy 
sight,  and  the  Arundels,  who  held  them  both,  were  no 
less  mighty  than  the  Greys  who  lay  amid  the  ashes 
of  Ruthin  across  the  ridges  to  the  north.  But  the 
whole  country  towards  England,  to  Wrexham  upon 
the  one  hand  and  to  Oswestry  on  the  other,  and  even 
to  Ellesmere  and  that  detached  fragment  of  Flint 
known  then  as  **  Maelor  Saesnag,"  was  in  open  or 
secret  sympathy  with  what  had  now  become  a 
national  movement.  More  men  of  note,  too,  and 
property  were  with  Owen  this  winter.  The  rising  in 
its  origin  had  been  markedly  democratic.  The 
labour  agitations  that  during  the  century  just  com- 
pleted had  stirred  England,  had  not  left  Wales  un- 
touched. There,  too,  the  times  had  changed  for  the 
lower  orders.  The  Norman  heel  pressed  more 
heavily  upon  them  than  it  did  upon  their  native 
masters,  who  were  often  on  friendly  terms  and  con- 
nected by  marriage  with  the  conquerors'  families, 
while  the  very  fact  that  Norman  feudal  customs  had 
grown  so  general  made  it  harder  for  the  poor.     The 


156  Owen  Glyndwr  [I40i 

Welsh  gentry  as  a  class  had  hitherto  fought  some- 
what shy  of  the  Dragon  Standard.     Many,  especially 
from  South  Wales,  had  fled  to  England.     Now,  how- 
ever, everyone  outside  the  immediate  shelter  of  the 
castles  had  to  declare  himself  for  Owen  or  the  King. 
And  at  this  moment  there  was  not  much  choice, — for 
those,  at  any  rate,  who  set  any  store  by  their  safety. 
To  make  matters  worse  for  Henry,  the  Scots  had 
again  declared  war  in  November,  and  in  December 
Glyndwr  made  a  dash  for  the  great  stronghold  of 
Harlech.     This  was  only  saved  to  the  King,  for  the 
time   being,  by  the    timely  despatch   of    four  hun- 
dred archers  and  one  hundred  men-at-arms  from  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  headquarters  at  Chester.     Owen, 
however,  achieved  this  winter  what  must  have  been, 
to  himself  at  any  rate,  a  more  satisfactory  success  than 
even  the  taking  of  Harlech,  and  this  was  the  capture 
if  his  old  enemy,  Reginald,  Lord  Grey  of  Ruthin. 
f    It  was  on  the  last  day  of  January,  according  to 
(Adam  of  Usk,  that  Glyndwr  crossed  the  wild  hills 
jdividing  his  own  territory  from  that  of  Grey,  and, 
/dropping  down  into  the  Vale  of  Clwyd,  appeared  be- 
/  fore    Ruthin.     There   are   several   versions    of   this 
/  notable  encounter.     All  point  to  the  fact  that  Owen 
/    exercised  some  strategy  in  drawing  his  enemy,  with 
/     the  comparatively  small  force  at  his  command,  out 
[     of  his  stronghold,  and  then  fell  on  him  with  over- 
powering numbers. 

An  old  tale  recounts  that  the  Welsh  leader  drove 
a  number  of  stakes  into  the  ground  in  a  wooded 
place  and  caused  his  men  to  hang  their  helmets 
on  them  to  represent  a  small  force,  while  the  men 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  157 

themselves  lurked  in  ambush  upon  either  side ;  and 
that  he  caused  the  shoes  of  his  horses  to  be  re- 
versed to  make  Grey  think  that  he  had  retreated. 
The  fight  took  place,  according  to  one  tradition,  close 
to  Ruthin ;  another  declares  that  Brynsaithmarchog 
("  the  hill  of  the  seven  knights  "  ),  half  way  to  Cor- 
wen,  was  the  scene  of  it.  But  this  is  of  little  moment 
to  other  than  local  antiquaries.  Grey's  force  was 
surrounded  and  cut  to  pieces  ;  that  haughty  baron 
himself  was  taken  prisoner,  and  carried  off  at  once, 
with  a  view  to  making  so  notable  a  captive  secure 
against  all  attempt  at  rescue,  to  the  Snowdon  mount- 
ains. The  tables  were  indeed  turned  on  the  greedy 
and  tyrannical  Lord  Marcher  who  had  been  the  prim- 
ary cause  of  all  this  trouble  that  had  fallen  upon 
Wales  and  England.  Glyndwr  would  not  have  been 
human  had  he  not  then  drained  to  the  last  drop  the 
cup  of  a  revenge  so  sweet,  and  Grey  was  immured  in 
the  castle  of  Dolbadarn,  whose  lonely  tower,  still 
standing  between  the  Llanberis  lakes  and  at  the 
foot  of  Snowdon,  is  so  familiar  to  the  modern  tour- 
ist. His  treatment  as  a  prisoner,  amid  the  snows  of 
those  cold  mountains,  was  not  indulgent,  if  his 
friends  in  England  are  to  be  believed.  But  such  a 
captive  was  too  valuable  to  make  experiments  upon 
in  the  matter  of  torture  or  starvation.  Owen  re- 
garded him  as  worth  something  more  than  his  weight 
in  gold,  and  gold  was  of  infinite  value  to  his  cause. 
So  he  proceeded  to  assess  Grey's  ransom  at  the  for- 
midable sum  of  ten  thousand  marks,  no  easy  amount 
for  even  the  greater  barons  of  that  time  to  realise. 
The  King  was  greatly  distressed  when  he  heard  of 


15S  Owen  Glyndwr  [1401 

his  favourite's  fate  and  pictured  him  as  chained  to 
the  wall  in  some  noisome  dungeon  in  the  heart  of 
those  dreary  mountains,  at  the  thought  of  which  he 
shuddered.  Rescue  was  impossible,  for  the  very 
frontiers  of  Wales  defied  him,  while  the  heart  of 
Snowdonia,  the  natural  fortress  of  the  Welsh  nation, 
was  at  that  time  almost  as  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
his  arm  as  Greenland ;  moreover  he  had  the  Scots 
just  now  upon  his  hands. 

Grey's   captivity   lasted    nearly   a   year.     Greatly 
concerned  in  the  matter  though  the  King  was,  it  was 
not  till  the  following  October  that  he  appointed  a 
commission  to  treat  with  Glyndwr  for  his  favourite's 
ransom.     This  commission  consisted  of  Sir  William 
j  de  Roos,  Sir  Richard  de  Grey,  Sir  William  de  Wil- 
'    loughby,   Sir  William  de  Zouche,  Sir  Hugh  Hals, 
and  six  other  less  distinguished  people.     Glyndwr 
agreed   to  release  his  prisoner  in  consideration  of 
'    ten    thousand    marks,    six    thousand    to    be    paid 
within   a   month,  and    hostages,  in   the   person   of 
his  eldest  son  and  others,  to  be  delivered  to  him 
as    guaranty    for    the     remaining    four    thousand, 
i   The    Bishop    of    London    and    others   were    then 
i   ordered  to  sell  the  manor  of  Hertleigh  in  Kent,  and 
Grey  was  to  be  excused  for  six  years  from  the  bur- 
densome tax  then  laid  on  absentee  Irish  landowners 
amounting  to  one-third  of  their  rentals.     These  pay- 
ments left  him,  we  are  told,  a  poor  man  for  life.    His 
Ruthin  property  had  been  destroyed  by   Glyndwr 
himself,  and  the  latter's  triumph  was  complete  when 
the  Lord  Marcher  had  to  make  a  humiliating  agree- 
ment not  to  bear  arms  against  him  for  the  rest  of 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  159 

his  life.     Hardyng,  the  rhyming  chronicler,  does  not 
omit  this  notable  incident : 

"  Soone  after  was  the  same  Lord  Grey  in  feelde 
Fightyng  taken  and  holden  prisoner, 
By  Owayne,  so  that  him  in  prison  helde, 
Tyll  his  ransome  was  made  and  finance 
Ten  thousand  marke,  and  fully  payed  were  dear 
For  whiche  he  was  so  poor  than  all  his  lyfe 
That  no  power  he  had  to  werr  ne  strife.'^ 

An  unfounded,  as  well  as  quite  improbable,  tradi- 
tion has  found  its  way  into  many  accounts,  which 
represents  Owen  as  compelling  Grey  to  marry  one 
of  his  daughters. 

While  these  stirring  events  were  taking  place, 
Glyndwr's  thoughts  and  his  correspondence  were 
busy  travelling  oversea.  He  was  sending  letters 
both  to  the  King  of  Scotland  and  the  native  chief- 
tains of  Ireland,  soliciting  their  aid.  At  this  time, 
too,  a  certain  knight  of  Cardiganshire  named  David 
ap  Tevan  Goy,  who  for  twenty  years  had  been 
fighting  against  the  Saracens,  with  various  Eastern 
Christians,  was  sent  on  Owen's  behalf  by  the  King 
of  France  to  the  King  of  Scotland.  He  was  cap- 
tured, however,  by  English  sailors  and  imprisoned 
in  the  Tower  of  London. 

Glyndwr's  own  messengers  were  equally  unfortun- 
ate, for  letters  he  sent  to  Robert  of  Scotland  and 
the  Irish  chieftains  were  seized  in  Ireland  and  their 
bearers  beheaded.  Adam  of  Usk  has  fortunately 
left  us  a  copy  of  them.  Glyndwr  had  as  yet  no 
chancellor  or  secretary  at  his  side  that  we  know  of. 


i6o  Owen  Glyndwr  [hoi 

And,  indeed,  being  a  man  of  the  world  and  a  well- 
educated  one,  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  he 
wrote  these  letters  himself.  We  have  so  little  from 
his  own  hand  ;  his  personality  is  in  some  respects  so 
vague  and  shadowy;  his  deeds  and  their  results  com- 
prise such  a  vast  deal  more  of  the  material  from 
which  the  man  himself  has  to  be  judged  than  is 
usually  the  case,  that  one  feels  disinclined  to  omit 
the  smallest  detail  which  brings  him,  as  an  indi- 
vidual, more  distinctly  to  the  mind.  I  shall  there- 
fore insert  the  whole  text  of  the  captured  letters. 
The  first  is  to  the  King  of  Scotland,  the  second  to 
the  lords  of  Ireland. 

"  Most  high  and  Mighty  and  redoubted  Lord  and 
Cousin,  I  commend  me  to  your  most  High  and  Royal 
Majesty,  humbly  as  it  beseemeth  me  with  all  honour  and 
reverence.  Most  redoubted  Lord  and  Sovereign  Cousin, 
please  it  you  and  your  most  high  Majesty  to  know  that 
Brutus,  your  most  noble  ancestor  and  mine,  which  was 
the  first  crowned  King  who  dwelt  in  this  realm  of  Eng- 
land, which  of  old  times  was  called  Great  Britain.  The 
which  Brutus  begat  three  sons  ;  to  wit,  Albanact,  Lo- 
crine,  and  Camber,  from  which  same  Albanact  you  are 
descended  in  direct  line.  And  the  issue  of  the  same 
Camber  reigned  loyally  down  to  Cadwalladar,  who  was 
the  last  crowned  King  of  the  people,  and  from  whom  I, 
your  simple  Cousin  am  descended  in  direct  line  ;  and 
after  whose  decease,  I  and  my  ancestors  and  all  my  said 
people  have  been  and  still  are,  under  the  tyranny  and 
bondage  of  mine  and  your  mortal  enemies,  the  Saxons  ; 
whereof  you  most  redoubted  Lord  and  very  Sovereign 
Cousin,  have  good  knowledge.     And  from  this  tyranny 


1401]  Owen  and  the  Percys  i6i 

and  bondage  the  prophecy  saith  that  I  shall  be  delivered 
by  the  help  and  succour  of  your  Royal  Majesty.  But 
most  redoubted  Lord  and  Sovereign  Cousin,  I  make  a 
grievous  plaint  to  your  Royal  Majesty,  and  most  Sover- 
eign Cousinship,  that  it  faileth  me  much  in  soldiers, 
therefore  most  redoubted  Lord  and  very  Sovereign 
Cousin,  I  humbly  beseech  you  kneeling  upon  my  knees, 
that  it  may  please  your  Royal  Majesty  to  send  me  a  cer- 
tain number  of  soldiers,  who  may  aid  me  and  withstand, 
with  God's  help,  mine  and  your  enemies,  having  regard 
most  redoubted  Lord  and  very  Sovereign  Cousin  to  the 
chastisement  of  this  mischief  and  of  all  the  many  past 
mischiefs  which  I  and  my  ancestors  of  Wales  have  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  mine  and  your  mortal  enemies. 
And  be  it  understood,  most  redoubted  Lord  and  very 
Sovereign  Cousin  that  I  shall  not  fail  all  the  days  of  my 
life  to  be  bounden  to  do  your  service  and  to  repay  you. 
And  in  that  I  cannot  send  unto  you  all  my  business  in 
writing,  I  send  these  present  bearers  fully  informed  in  all 
things,  to  whom  be  pleased  to  give  faith  and  belief  in 
what  they  shall  say  to  you  by  word  of  mouth.  From 
my  Court,  most  redoubted  Lord  and  very  Sovereign 
Cousin,  may  the  Almighty  Lord  have  you  in  his  keeping." 

The  letter  to  the  Irish  lords  runs  thus : 

"  Health  and  fulness  of  love  most  dread  Lord 
and  most  trusty  Cousin.  Be  it  known  unto  you 
that  a  great  discord  or  war  hath  arisen  between 
us  and  our  and  your  deadly  enemies,  the  Saxons  ; 
which  war  we  have  manfully  waged  now  for  nearly 
two  years  past,  and  henceforth  mean  and  hope  to 
wage  and  carry  out  to  a  good  and  effectual  end,  by 
the  grace  of  God  our  Saviour,  and  by  your  help  and 


1 62  Owen  Glyndwr  ti4oi 

countenance.  But  seeing  that  it  is  commonly  reported 
by  the  prophecy,  that  before  we  can  have  the  upper  hand 
in  this  behalf,  you  and  yours,  our  well  beloved  Cousins  in 
Ireland  must  stretch  forth  thereto  a  helping  hand,  there- 
fore most  dread  Lord  and  trusty  Cousin,  with  heart  and 
soul  we  pray  you  that  of  your  horse  and  foot  soldiers, 
for  the  succour  of  us  and  our  people  who  now  this  long 
while  are  oppressed  by  our  enemies  and  yours,  as  well  as 
to  oppose  the  treacherous  and  deceitful  will  of  those 
same  enemies,  you  despatch  to  us  as  many  as  you  shall 
be  able  with  convenience  and  honour,  saving  in  all 
things  your  honourable  State,  as  quickly  as  may  seem 
good  to  you.  Delay  not  to  do  this  by  the  love  we  bear 
you  and  as  we  put  our  trust  in  you,  although  we  be  un- 
known to  you,  seeing  that,  most  dread  Lord  and  Cousin, 
so  long  as  we  shall  be  able  to  manfully  wage  this  war 
in  our  borders,  as  doubtless  is  dear  to  you,  you  and  all 
the  other  Chiefs  of  your  land  of  Ireland  will  in  the  mean- 
time have  welcome  peace  and  calm  repose.  And  be- 
cause, my  Lord  Cousin,  the  bearers  of  these  presents 
shall  make  things  known  to  you  more  fully  by  word  of 
mouth,  if  it  please  you,  you  shall  give  credence  to  them 
in  all  things  which  they  shall  say  to  you  on  our  behalf, 
and  you  may  trustfully  confide  to  them  whatsoever  you 
will,  dread  Lord  and  Cousin,  that  we  your  poor  cousin 
shall  do.  Dread  Lord  and  Cousin,  may  the  Almighty 
preserve  your  reverence  and  Lordship  in  long  life  and 
good  fortune. 

"  Written  in  North  Wales  on  the  twenty-ninth  day  of 
November  [1401]." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  KING  AND   HOTSPUR 


/ 


1402 


AS  if  the  world  of  Britain  were  not  already  suf- 
ficiently excited,  the  spring  of  1402  opened 
with  tremendous  portents.  In  the  month  of 
February  a  comet  with  its  fiery  streaming  tail,  **  a  ter- 
ror to  the  world,"  broke  across  the  heavens  and  set  all 
Europe  trembling.  The  bards  of  Wales  rose  with 
one  voice  to  the  occasion,  headed  by  lolo  Goch,  who 
recalled  the  fiery  star  that  heralded  the  birth  of 
Arthur,  and  even  that  other  one  which  guided  the 
Magi  to  our  Saviour's  cradle. 

The  fiery  shapes,  too,  that  "lit  the  front  of  heaven  " 
at  Owen's  birth  were  recalled  again  with  a  fresh  out- 
burst of  enthusiasm,  and  the  tail  of  this  particular 
comet,  which  Adam  of  Usk  saw  by  day  as  well  as  by 
night,  while  travelling  towards  Rome,  curled  up  at 
times,  in  the  eyes  of  credulous  Welsh  patriots,  into  a 
dragon's  shape,  the  badge  of  Welsh  nationality. 
Englishmen  beheld  it  pointing  at  one  time  towards 
Wales,  at  another  towards  Scotland,  and  read  in 
these  mysterious  changes  portents  for  the  coming 
year.    Thunder-storms  of  terrific  violence  swept  over 

163 


164  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

the  country.  At  Danbury,  says  Holinshed,  while 
the  people  were  in  church,  Hghtning  struck  the  roof 
and  destroyed  the  chancel,  and  while  the  storm  was 
at  its  height  the  devil  entered  the  sacred  building, 
dressed  as  a  Franciscan  friar  (one  of  Owen's  well- 
wishers,  it  will  be  remembered),  and  leaped  three 
times  over  the  altar  from  right  to  left ;  then,  turning 
black  in  the  face,  he  rushed  down  the  aisle,  actually 
passing  between  a  man's  legs,  and  leaving  an  over- 
powering smell  of  sulphur  in  his  track.  The  man's 
legs  were  black  ever  after,  so  that  there  was  no 
doubt  about  the  nature  of  the  visitant !  Other  weird 
things  happened  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
which  do  not  concern  our  story,  except  to  show  how 
strained  were  men's  imaginations  in  a  year  which 
after  all  proved  fruitful  enough  of  events. 

Whatever  faith  Owen  may  have  had  in  his  own 
magical  art,  he  at  any  rate  did  not  waste  time  just 
now  in  incantations  or  in  interpreting  the  prophecy, 
but  swept  down  the  Vale  of  Clwyd,  making  on  his 
way  a  final  clearance  of  Grey's  desolated  property. 
With  much  significance,  read  by  the  hght  of  his 
future  relations  with  the  Mortimers  and  Percys,  he 
spared  the  lordship  of  Denbigh,  though  its  owners 
were  still  his  open  enemies.  Descending  the  Vale, 
however,  he  fell  upon  Saint  Asaph  with  merciless 
hand,  destroying  the  cathedral,  the  bishop's  palace, 
and  the  canon's  house.  Trevor  was  at  this  time  the 
bishop, —  the  same,  it  will  be  remembered,  who 
warned  Henry  and  his  council  against  exasperating 
Owen  and  the  Welsh ;  he  had  from  the  first  gone 
over  to  the  new  King,  had  prominently  assisted  at 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  165 

the  deposition  of  Richard,  and  had  since  held  many 
conspicuous  offices.  He  was  now  a  ruined  man,  an 
enforced  exile  from  his  diocese,  and  he  must  have 
derived  but  poor  consolation  from  reminding  his 
English  friends  of  the  accuracy  of  his  prophecy.  He 
came  of  the  great  border  House  of  Trevor,  and, 
among  other  things,  built  the  first  stone  bridge  in 
Wales,  which  may  yet  be  seen  stemming  with  five 
massive  arches  the  turbulent  torrents  of  the  Dee  at 
Llangollen.  In  the  meantime  he  was  a  pensioner  on 
the  King,  but  he  will  appear  later  in  a  character  of 
quite  another  sort.  An  entry  of  £66,  paid  to  him 
at  this  time  in  lieu  of  his  losses,  appears  on  the  Pell 
Rolls. 

No  danger  just  now  threatened  from  the 
English  border  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  any  help 
come  to  Glyndwr  from  Ireland  or  the  North.  There 
was  indeed  something  of  a  lull  in  Wales  throughout 
this  spring,  unless  perhaps  for  those  unfortunate 
Welshmen  who  held  back  from  Glyndwr's  cause 
and  yet  ventured  to  remain  in  the  country.  They, 
at  any  rate,  had  not  much  peace. 

To  this  date  is  assigned  the  well-known  story  of 
Glyndwr  and  his  cousin  Howel  Sele,  that  gruesome 
tragedy  which  has  invested  the  romantic  heights  of 
Nannau  with  a  ceaseless  interest  to  generations  of 
tourists,  and  many  more  generations  of  Welshmen, 
and  has  seized  the  fancy  of  the  romancist  and  the 
poet.  Now  Nannau,  where  Vaughans  have  lived  for 
many  centuries,  enjoys  the  distinction  of  being  the 
most  elevated  country-seat  in  Wales,  being  some 
eight  hundred   feet  above   Dolgelly,   which   lies   at 


1 66  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

the  base  of  the  beautiful  grounds  that  cover  the 
isolated  hill  on  whose  summit  the  present  mansion 
stands.  It  is  famous  also,  even  in  a  region  pre-emin- 
ent for  its  physical  charms,  for  the  surpassing  beauty 
of  its  outlook,  which  people  from  every  part  of  Brit- 
ain come  annually  in  thousands  to  enjoy.  To  the 
south  the  great  mass  of  Cader  Idris  rises  immed- 
iately above,  with  infinite  grandeur.  To  the  west 
the  Barmouth  estuary  gleams  seaward  through  a 
vista  of  wood  and  mountain.  To  the  north  the 
valley  of  the  rushing  Mawddach  opens  deep  into  the 
hills,  while  to  the  eastward,  where  the  twin  peaks  of 
the  Arans  fill  the  sky,  spread  those  miles  of  foliage 
through  which  the  crystal  streams  of  the  Wnion 
come  burrowing  and  tumbling  seawards.  Nature 
showed  even  a  wilder  aspect  to  Glyndwr  and  the 
then  lord  of  Nannau  as  they  took  their  memorable 
walk  together  upon  these  same  heights  five  centuries 
ago. 

At  that  time  there  stood  in  the  meadows  beneath, 
near  the  confluence  of  the  Wnion  and  the  Mawd- 
dach, the  noble  abbey  of  Cymmer,  whose  remains 
are  still  a  conspicuous  object  in  the  landscape. 
Howel  Sele  was  by  no  means  an  admirer  or  follower 
of  his  cousin  Owen,  and  if  latterly  he  had  not  dared 
openly  to  oppose  him,  he  had  at  least  held  back ;  his 
relationship  to  the  chief  alone  saving  him,  no  doubt, 
from  the  punishment  meted  out  to  others  who  were 
less  prudent,  or  less  faint-hearted.  The  worthy  abbot 
of  Cymmer,  however,  for  some  motive  of  his  own, 
or  perhaps  in  a  genuine  spirit  of  Christianity,  en- 
deavoured to  promote  a  better  understanding  be- 


1402J  The  King  and  Hotspur  167 

tween  the  relatives,  and  so  far  succeeded  that  Owen 
consented  to  come  and  visit  Howel  in  peaceful 
fashion,  bringing  with  him  only  a  few  attendants. 

The  meeting  took  place  and  an  amicable  under- 
standing seemed  assured.  During  the  course  of  the 
day  the  two  men,  so  runs  the  tale,  went  for  a  stroll 
in  the  park,  Howel,  at  any  rate,  carrying  his  bow. 
He  was  celebrated  for  his  prowess  as  a  marksman, 
and  Owen,  catching  sight  of  a  buck  through  the 
trees,  suggested  that  his  cousin  should  give  him  an 
exhibition  of  his  skill.  Howel,  falling  in  apparently 
with  the  proposal,  bent  his  bow,  and  having  feigned 
for  a  moment  to  take  aim  at  the  deer  swung  sud- 
denly round  and  discharged  the  arrow  full  at  Owen's 
breast.  The  latter,  either  from  singular  forethought 
or  by  great  good  luck,  happened  to  have  a  shirt  of 
mail  beneath  his  tunic,  and  the  shaft  fell  harmlessly 
to  the  ground.  The  fate  of  Howel  was  swift  and 
terrible.  Accounts  differ  somewhat,  but  they  all 
agree  in  the  essential  fact  that  neither  his  wife  and 
family  nor  his  friends  ever  set  eyes  upon  the  lord  of 
Nannau  again.  It  is  supposed  that  the  two  men 
and  their  attendants  forthwith  engaged  in  deadly 
combat,  Glyndwr  proving  the  victor,  and  consigning 
his  cousin  to  some  terrible  fate  that  was  only  guessed 
at  long  afterwards.  In  any  case,  he  at  once  burnt 
the  old  house  at  Nannau  to  the  ground,  and  its 
remains,  Pennant  tells  us,  were  yet  there  in  his  day, 
— a  hundred  years  ago.  For  more  than  a  generation 
no  man  knew  what  had  become  of  the  ill-fated 
Howel,  but  forty  years  afterwards,  near  the  spot 
where  he  was  last  seen,  a  skeleton  corresponding  to 


1 68  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

the  proportions  of  the  missing  man  was  found  inside 
a  hollow  oak  tree,  and  it  is  said  that  there  were 
those  still  living  who  could  and  did  explain  how  the 
vanquished  Howel  had  been  immured  there  dead  or 
alive  by  Glyndwr.  The  old  oak  lived  on  till  the 
year  18 13,  and  collapsed  beneath  its  weight  of  years 
on  a  still  July  night,  a  few  hours  after  it  had  been 
sketched  by  the  celebrated  antiquary,  Sir  Richard 
Colt  Hoare,  who  tells  us  it  then  measured  twenty- 
seven  feet  in  girth.  It  had  been  an  object  of  pious 
horror  for  all  time  to  the  natives  of  the  district,  and 
was  known  as  the  **  hollow  oak  of  demons,"  and 
dread  sounds  were  heard  issuing  from  its  vast  trunk 
by  all  who  were  hardy  enough  to  venture  near  it 
after  nightfall.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  once  visited 
Nannau,  remembered  the  weird  story  and  the 
haunted  oak  when  he  was  writing  Marmion  : 

"  All  nations  have  their  omens  drear,  n 

Their  legends  wild  of  love  or  fear ; 
To  Cambria  look — the  peasant  see 
Bethink  him  of  Glyndowerdy, 
And  shun  the  spirit's  Blasted  Tree." 

But  while  Glyndwr  was  having  things  pretty  much 
his  own  way  in  Wales  throughout  the  spring  of  1402, 
King  Henry  was  in  truth  in  great  anxiety.  To  add 
to  his  cares  and  trouble  he  was  much  concerned  with 
endeavours  to  secure  a  husband  for  his  daughter 
Blanche,  and  a  wife  for  himself  in  the  person  of 
Joanna  of  Brittany.  For  the  lavish  expenditure  in- 
separable from  these  royal  alliances  he  had  to 
squeeze  his  people,  and  they  were  in  no  condition 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  169 

to  be  squeezed,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  his 
captains  and  soldiers  and  garrisons  in  Wales  were 
in  a  state  of  pecuniary  starvation,  and  here  and 
there  in  actual  want  of  food.  All  this  awakened 
much  discontent  and  there  were  serious  riots  in 
many  places.  A  plot  of  which  the  friars,  chiefly 
represented  by  Glyndwr's  friends  the  Franciscans, 
were  the  leaders,  was  discovered  and  crushed  with 
much  hanging  and  quartering.  Even  Henry's  loyal 
subjects  of  London  turned  mutinous  and  their  juries 
refused  to  convict  the  priests.  The  aid,  however,  of 
a  packed  jury  in  Islington  was  invoked,  who  excused 
themselves  for  some  manifestly  outrageous  decisions 
with  the  naive  but  unanswerable  plea  that  if  they  did 
not  hang  the  prisoners  they  would  be  hanged  them- 
selves. The  report  was  still  sedulously  bruited 
abroad  that  Richard  was  alive,  and,  if  anything,  the 
idea  gained  ground  ;  while,  to  complete  the  distress 
of  the  King,  the  Scots  were  waging  open  war  upon 
him  in  the  North,  and  proving  perhaps  better  allies 
to  Glyndwr  than  if  they  had  responded  to  that  war- 
rior's appeals  and  landed  in  scattered  bands  upon 
the  coast  of  Wales.  The  Percys,  however,  the 
King's  "  faithful  cousins,"  confronted  the  Scots 
and  were  a  host  in  themselves.  He  despatched  his 
daughter  Blanche  and  her  hardly  extracted  dower 
to  Germany,  and  a  terrible  example  was  made  of 
the  friars.  Glyndwr  and  the  condition  of  Wales  one 
can  hardly  suppose  he  underestimated,  but  he  per- 
mitted himself,  at  any  rate,  to  shut  his  eyes  to  it. 

Henry's  dream,  since  mounting  the  throne,  had 
been  an  Eastern  crusade.     So  far,  however,  his  own 


170  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

unruly  subjects  and  neighbours  had  allowed  him  but 
little  breathing  time,  and  he  had  been  splashed  with 
the  mud  of  almost  every  county  in  England  and 
Wales  ;  but  now  he  had  gone  to  Berkhampstead,  his 
favourite  palace,  to  rest  and  dream  of  that  long- 
cherished  scheme  of  Eastern  adventure. 

**  So  shaken  as  we  are,  so  wan  with  care, 
Find  we  a  time  for  frighted  peace  to  pant, 
And  breathe  short-winded  accents  of  new  broils 
To  be  commenced  in  strands  afar  remote. 
No  more  the  thirsty  entrance  of  this  soil 
Shall  daub  her  lips  with  her  own  children's  blood  ; 
No  more  shall  trenching  war  channel  her  fields, 
Nor  bruise  her  flowerets  with  the  armed  hoofs 
Of  hostile  paces." 

But  the  month  of  June  was  not  yet  out,  when  all 
at  once  there  came  upon  the  King  at  Berkhampstead 
^'  a  post  from  Wales  laden  with  heavy  news,"  which 
shattered  all  dreams  of  Palestine  and  turned  his  un- 
willing thoughts  once  more  to  the  stormy  hills 
whence  came  this  urgent  message. 

Late  in  May,  Glyndwr  had  again  left  North  Wales 
and  with  a  large  force  made  his  way  through  the 
present  counties  of  Montgomery  and  Radnor,  and 
fallen  on  the  as  yet  unravaged  border  of  Hereford. 
Now  it  so  happened  that  among  the  districts  which 
here  suffered  the  most  were  those  belonging  to  the 
young  Earl  of  March,  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne, 
and  on  that  account  kept  secure  under  lock  and  key 
by  Henry.  This  child,  for  he  was  nothing  more, 
was  descended  from  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  third 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  171 

son  of  Edward  the  Third.  His  title  to  the  throne 
stood  next  to  that  of  Richard,  who  had  himself 
ofificially  named  him  as  his  heir.  Henry,  sensible  of 
his  dangerous  claim,  kept  the  boy  and  his  brother 
under  his  own  charge,  leaving  their  estates  in  Den- 
bigh and  the  South  Wales  Marches  to  be  adminis- 
tered by  their  uncle,  Edmund  Mortimer,  who  was 
still  a  young  man  and  not  without  renown  as  a 
soldier.  Mortimer  and  other  Lord  Marchers  had 
been  notified  in  good  time  to  raise  the  forces  of  the 
border  counties  and  march  out  to  meet  the  Welsh. 

They  met  upon  the  border  in  a  narrow  valley  at 
Pilleth  near  Knighton,  and  the  result  was  wholly 
disastrous  to  the  English.  The  Welsh  on  this  occa- 
sion were  led  by  Rhys  ap  Gethin,  one  of  Owen's  most 
\  formidable  captains,  and  they  utterly  overthrew 
\  Mortimer's  army,  driving  it  down  the  narrow  valley 
\  of  the  Lugg  below  Pilleth  hill  where  escape  was 
difficult,  and  slaying  eleven  hundred  men,  among 
whom  were  great  numbers  of  knights  and  gentle- 
men. Mortimer  himself  was  captured,  and  it  was 
said,  with  how  much  truth  does  not  appear  evident, 
that  many  of  Mortimer's  troops,  who  were  his 
tenants,  and  Welshmen,  turned  their  arms  against 
their  own  side  and  made  a  bloody  day  still  bloodier. 
The  story  of  the  outrages  of  the  Welsh  women  upon 
the  bodies  of  the  slain  is  a  familiar  topic  of  dispute 
and  not  a  very  savoury  one.*     In  regard  to  Owen's 


*  Some  thirty  years  ago  the  farmers  of  the  district  drove  their 
ploughs  into  the  old  sod  which  from  time  immemorial  had  covered 
the  long,  steep  slope  of  Pilleth  hill,  or  Bryn  Glas.  In  turning  it  up 
they  came  upon  masses  of  human  bones  all  collected  in  one  spot, 


172  Owe7i   Glyndwr  [1402 

new  captive,  Mortimer,  as  the  uncle  and  representa- 
tive of  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne,  he  was  of 
much  more  actual  importance  than  Grey  of  Ruthin. 
But  the  Welsh  chieftain  had  no  personal  grudge 
against  the  handsome  and  gallant  young  soldier  who 
had  fallen  into  his  hands  by  the  ordinary  fortune  of 
war.  Indeed,  as  we  know,  he  had  a  kindly  feeling 
for  the  Percys  and  the  Mortimers ;  so  much  so  that 
some  of  the  King's  most  ardent  friends,  as  well  as 
Henry  himself,  strongly  hinted  that  Sir  Edmund 
was  no  unwilling  prisoner,  and  that  it  was  not  wholly 
the  chances  of  war  which  had  placed  him  in  Owen's 
hands.  Mortimer's  relations  with  Glyndwr  later  on 
might  lend  plausibility  to  such  suggestions  ;  but  it  is 
difficult  to  suppose  that  had  the  former  wished 
earlier  for  an  alliance  with  Owen,  he  would  have 
chosen  such  an  unnecessarily  bloody  and  risky  man- 
ner of  effecting  it.  Moreover  Henry  had  reason  to 
misrepresent  Mortimer's  sentiments,  for  the  question 
of  the  hour  was  his  ransom.  There  can,  I  think,  be 
little  doubt  that  Mortimer  was  at  first  as  unwilling  a 
prisoner  as  Grey.  He  and  Owen  may  have  soon 
developed  a  personal  liking  for  each  other,  but  that 
is  of  little  importance.  Mortimer  at  any  rate  seems 
to  have  been  sent  to  Snowdon,  or  possibly  to  Owen's 
small  prison  at  Llansantffraid  in  Glyndyfrdwy,  which 
totters  even  now  in  extreme  decay  upon  the  banks 
of  the  Dee;  and  ransom  no  doubt  was  regarded  as 


which  indicated  without  a  doubt  the  burying-place  of  the  battle  of 
1402.  The  space  was  withdrawn  from  cultivation  and  a  grove  of 
trees  was  planted  on  it,  which  have  now  grown  to  a  large  size  and 
form  a  prominent  object  in  the  valley. 


14021  The  King  and  Hotspur  173 

the  ordinary  outcome  of  the  affair  by  all  parties, 
except  the  King.  For  it  soon  became  evident  that 
Henry,  not  unwilling  to  see  a  possible  rival  in 
durance  vile  and  safe  out  of  the  way,  was  going  to 
oppose  all  overtures  for  his  ransom. 

Hotspur,  Mortimer's  brother-in-law,  waxed  hot 
and  angry,  as  of  late  he  had  been  apt  to  do  with  the 
King,  but  he  was  far  away  in  the  North  looking 
after  the  Scottish  invaders.  He  now  wrote  to  Henry 
that  it  was  a  strange  thing,  seeing  the  great  concern 
he  had  showed  for  Grey  of  Ruthin,  that  he  should 
act  thus  towards  a  subject  who  was  of  even  greater 
consequence,  and  moreover  his  (Percy's)  brother-in- 
law.  Getting  no  satisfaction,  according  to  Leland, 
who  quotes  from  an  old  chronicle,  the  fiery  Hotspur 
went  southward  himself  to  Henry  and  demanded  in 
no  gentle  terms  the  right  to  ransom  his  wife's 
brother.  To  this  demand  the  King  replied  that  he 
would  not  strengthen  those  who  were  his  enemies 
by  paying  money  to  them.  Hotspur  retorted 
warmly  "  that  the  King  owed  it  to  those  who  had 
risked  their  lives  upon  his  account,  to  come  to  their 
aid  when  in  peril."  The  King  rejoined  angrily, 
"  You  are  a  traitor  ;  you  would  succour  the  enemies 
of  myself  and  my  kingdom."  "  I  am  no  traitor," 
said  Percy,  **  but  faithful  and  speak  in  good  faith." 
The  King  then  drew  his  sword  ;  whereupon  Hot- 
spur, exclaiming,  "  Not  here,  but  on  the  field  of 
battle,"  left  the  royal  presence,  as  it  happened, 
for  ever. 

This  famous  interview  is  practically  endorsed  by 
the  rhymer  Hardyng,  Hotspur's  personal  attendant : 


174  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

'*  Sir  Henry  sawe  no  grace  for  Mortimer, 
His  wife's  brother  ;  he  went  away  unkende 
To  Berwyk  so,  and  after  came  no  nere, 
Afore  thei  met  at  Shrowesbury  in  fere 
Wher  then  thei  fought  for  cause  of  his  extent. 
He  purposed  had  Mortimer  his  coronement." 

Hardyng  in  the  preceding  verse  gives  two  other 
reasons  for  the  defection  of  the  Percys,  and  though 
our  story  has  not  yet  reached  that  notable  crisis,  the 
lines  may  perhaps  be  quoted  here  : 

**  The  King  hym  blamed  for  he  toke  not  Owen, 
When  he  came  to  him  on  his  assurance, 
And  he  answered  then  to  the  King  again, 
He  might  not  so  kepe  his  affiaunce. 
To  shame  himself,  with  such  a  variaunce 
The  King  blamed  him  for  his  prisoner, 
Th'  Erie  Douglas,  for  cause  he  was  not  there." 

This  distinct  statement  from  such  an  authority 
that  Hotspur  had  met  Glyndwr,  referring  of  course 
to  the  previous  year  in  Wales,  should  be  conclusive, 
though  it  is  not  creditable  to  Henry's  honour  that 
he  should  throw  in  Hotspur's  face  the  fact  of  his 
having  failed  to  act  treacherously  towards  the 
Welshman.  The  reference  to  the  Earl  of  Douglas 
will  become  plain  shortly. 

The  victory  of  Pilleth  had  caused  great  enthusiasm 
among  the  Welsh,  and  made  a  particularly  marked 
impression  upon  the  southern  and  south-eastern  dis- 
tricts, where  the  Norman  baronial  houses  were 
strong,  and  where  even  the  Welsh  ''  gentiles  "  had 
by  no  means  as  yet  given   an    eager   welcome   to 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  1 75 

Owen's  dragon  standard  with  its  accompaniment  of 
flaming  torches  and  pitiless  spears.  Hundreds  of 
hitherto  half-hearted  Welshmen  now  joined  Glyn- 
dwr,  who,  flushed  with  victory  and  strong  in  its 
prestige,  turned  fiercely  upon  Glamorgan  and  went 
plundering,  burning,  and  ravaging  his  way  through 
that  fair  county,  taking  little  reck  of  the  score  or 
two  of  Norman  castles  so  strong  in  defence  but  at 
this  time  so  powerless  for  offence.  He  fell  on  Car- 
diff and  destroyed  the  whole  town,  saving  only  the 
street  where  stood  a  religious  house  of  his  friends, 
or  at  any  rate  Henry's  enemies,  the  Franciscans. 
Turning  eastward  he  then  sacked  and  burnt  the 
bishop's  palace  at  Llandaff,  stormed  Abergavenny 
Castle,  and  destroyed  the  town. 

Leaving  his  friends  to  hold  the  country  he  had  so 
effectually  roused,  we  next  find  him  in  the  North, 
investing  the  three  castles  of  Carnarvon,  Harlech, 
and  Criccieth,  and  reminding  those  who  in  his 
absence  may  have  faltered  in  their  allegiance  that 
such  an  attitude  was  a  costly  one.  Rhys  and  William 
ap  Tudor  from  the  small  stone  manor-house  in 
Anglesey  that  gave  a  dynasty  to  Britain  are  with 
him  again,  though  the  latter,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  sought  and  gained  at  Conway  the  pardon  of  the 
King.  Robert  ap  Meredydd  of  Cefn-y-fan  and 
Gesail-Gyferch  near  Criccieth,  was  another  trusty 
henchman  of  Glyndwr.  But  Robert's  brother  levan 
ap  Meredydd  stood  for  the  King,  and  was  one  of  the 
few  men  in  West  Carnarvonshire  who  did  so.  He 
was  now  in  Carnarvon  Castle,  joint  governor  with 
John  Bolde,  and  his  brother  was  outside  with  Owen, 


176  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

—a  little  bit  of  family  detail  for  which,  though  of 
no  great  importance,  one  is  thankful  amid  the  bloody 
and  fiery  chaos  in  which  such  a  vast  amount  of  per- 
sonality lies  forgotten  and  ingulfed. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  levan  died  in  Car- 
narvon, but  so  completely  occupied  was  the  surround- 
ing country  by  Owen's  forces  and  sympathisers,  that 
they  had  to  bring  his  body  round  by  sea  to  his  old 
home  and  bury  it  secretly  in  his  own  parish  church 
of  Penmorfa,  where  his  dust  still  lies.  His  brother 
Robert,  though  he  held  by  Glyndwr  throughout 
most  of  his  long  struggle,  eventually  received  the 
royal  pardon,  and  succeeded  to  the  estates.  But 
even  his  attachment  to  the  Welsh  chieftain  had  not 
in  any  way  atoned  for  his  brother's  opposition,  or 
averted  the  inevitable  fate  which  overtook  the  pro- 
perty of  all  Glyndwr's  opponents.  Both  Cefn-y-fan 
and  Gesail-Gyferch  were  burnt  this  year  to  ashes. 
At  the  former  the  conflagration  was  so  prodigious, 
says  an  old  local  legend,  that  the  ruins  smoked  and 
the  coals  glowed  for  two  whole  years  afterwards. 
Gesail-Gyferch  was  rebuilt  by  Robert  and  may  be 
seen  to-day,  much  as  he  made  it,  between  the  vil- 
lages of  Penmorfa  and  Dolbenmaen.  Its  owner, 
when  the  war  was  over,  married,  and  had  a  host  of 
children,  from  whom  innumerable  Welsh  families  are 
proud  to  trace  their  descent.  If  this  gossip  about 
the  sons  of  Meredydd  and  about  Howel  Sele  may 
seem  too  parenthetical,  it  serves  in  some  sort  to 
illustrate  the  severance  of  families  and  the  relentless 
vengeance  which  Glyndwr  himself  executed  upon  all 
who  opposed  him. 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  177 

In  the  meantime,  while  Glyndwr  was  besieging  the 
castles  upon  the  Carnarvon  and  Merioneth  coast,  his 
great  opponent  Henry  was  being  sorely  pressed.  The 
battle  of  Pilleth  and  Mortimer's  captivity  had  raised  a 
storm  among  those  who  had  been  the  King's  friends, 
and  worse  things  seemed  in  the  air.  Prince  Thomas, 
his  second  son,  who  was  acting  as  viceroy  in  Ireland, 
was  reduced  by  want  of  money  to  sore  straits,  while 
forty  thousand  Scotsmen,  with  numerous  French 
allies  in  their  train,  were  far  outnumbering  any 
forces  the  Percys  unaided  could  bring  against  them. 
But  with  all  this  the  King  was  burning  to  crush 
Owen  and  chastise  the  Welsh,  and  it  was  from  no 
want  of  will  or  vigour  that  he  had  for  so  many  weeks 
to  nurse  his  wrath.  Richard,  Earl  de  Grey,  had  been 
left  in  charge  of  the  South  Wales  Marches,  while  the 
Earl  of  Arundel  was  doing  his  best  to  keep  order 
north  of  the  Severn.  On  July  23rd  the  King  was  at 
Lilleshall,  in  Shropshire.  Provisions,  arms,  and  men 
were  pouring  into  Welshpool,  Ludlow,  and  Mont- 
gomery, Hereford,  Shrewsbury,  and  Chester.  Money 
was  scarcer  than  ever,  and  had  to  be  borrowed  in 
every  direction  from  private  individuals.  Henry  him- 
self was  riding  restlessly  from  Shropshire  to  Lincoln, 
from  Lincoln  to  Nottingham,  and  again  from  Not- 
tingham to  his  favourite  post  of  observation  at 
Lichfield. 

At  last  all  was  ready ;  the  reduction  of  Wales  was 
for  once  the  paramount  object  of  the  King's  inten- 
tions. Three  great  armies  were  to  assemble  on  Au- 
gust the  27th  at  Chester,  Shrewsbury,  and  Hereford 
under  the  commands  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the 


178  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

King  himself,  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick  respectively. 
After  much  delay  this  mighty  host,  numbering  in  all 
by  a  general  consensus  of  authorities  one  hundred 
thousand  men,  prepared  to  set  itself  in  motion. 

It  was  the  first  week  of  September  when  it  crossed 
the  border.  The  troops  carried  with  them  fifteen 
days*  provisions,  a  precaution  much  exceeding  the  or- 
dinary commissariat  limitations  of  those  times,  but 
prompted  by  the  bitter  memories  of  three  futile  and 
painful  campaigns,  and  more  than  ever  necessary  ow- 
ing to  the  devastated  condition  of  Wales.  With  such 
an  army,  led  by  the  King  himself,  England  might 
well  think  that  the  Welsh  troubles  were  at  an  end. 

Owen's  character  as  a  magician  had  been  firmly 
established  this  long  time  in  Wales.  His  power  of 
eluding  the  King's  armies,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
occasional  victories,  and  still  more  of  the  way  in 
which  the  elements  had  seemed  to  fight  for  him,  had 
given  him  even  throughout  England  something  of  a 
reputation  for  necromancy.  The  practical  mind  of 
Henry  himself  had  been  disturbed  by  the  strange 
rumours  that  had  reached  him,  coupled  with  his  own 
experiences  of  that  implacable  and  irrepressible  foe 
who  claimed  the  power  of  "  calling  spirits  from  the 
vasty  deep,"  and  of  being  outside  "  the  roll  of  com- 
mon men." 

If  the  English  had  hitherto  only  half  believed  that 
Owen  was  a  wizard,  they  were  in  less  than  a  week 
convinced  that  he  was  the  very  devil  himself,  against 
whom  twice  their  hundred  thousand  men  would  be 
of  sHght  avail.  Never  within  man's  memory  had 
there  been  such  a  September  in  the  Welsh  mount- 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  1 79 

ains.  The  very  heavens  themselves  seemed  to  de- 
scend in  sheets  of  water  upon  the  heads  of  these 
magnificent  and  well-equipped  arrays.  Dee,  Usk, 
and  Wye,  with  their  boisterous  tributaries  that 
crossed  the  English  line  of  march,  roared  bank-high, 
and  buried  all  trace  of  the  fords  beneath  volumes 
of  brown  tumbling  water,  while  bridges,  homesteads, 
and  such  flocks  as  the  Welsh  had  not  driven  west- 
ward for  safety  were  carried  downwards  to  the  sea. 
In  these  days  of  rapid  travel  it  seems  incredible  that 
so  overwhelming  and,  for  the  times,  well-found  a 
host,  could  be  beaten  in  less  than  a  fortnight  with- 
out striking  a  blow.  It  is  an  object-lesson  in  medie- 
val warfare  worth  taking  to  heart  and  remembering. 
Night  after  night  the  soldiers  lay  in  the  open, 
drenched  to  the  skin,  and  half  starved  on  account 
of  the  havoc  wrought  upon  their  provisions  by  the 
weather.  The  thunder  roared,  we  are  told,  with 
fearful  voice  and  the  lightning  flashed  against  inky 
skies,  above  the  heads  of  that  shivering,  superstitious 
host,  at  the  will,  it  seemed  to  them,  of  the  magic 
wand  of  the  accursed  Glyndwr.  Numbers  died  from 
exposure.  The  royal  tent  was  blown  flat,  and  Henry 
himself  only  escaped  severe  injury  by  being  at  the 
moment  in  full  armour. 

The  King,  Hardyng  tells  us, 

**  Had  never  but  tempest  foule  and  raine 
As  long  as  he  was  ay  in  Wales  grounde  ; 
Rockes  and  mystes,  winds  and  stormes,  certaine 
All  men  trowed  witches  it  made  that  stounde." 

How  far  the  English  armies  penetrated  on  this 


i8o  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

memorable  occasion  we  do  not  know  ;  but  we  do 
know  that  by  the  22nd  of  September,  just  a  fortnight 
after  they  had  first  crossed  the  border,  there  was  not 
an  EngUshman  in  Wales  outside  the  castles,  while 
the  King  himself,  a  day  or  two  later,  was  actually 
back  at  Berkhampstead,  striving,  in  the  domestic 
seclusion  of  his  own  palace,  to  forget  the  unspeaka- 
ble miseries  of  his  humiliating  failure.  Where  Owen 
distributed  his  forces  through  this  tempestuous  Sep- 
tember, there  is  no  evidence ;  except  that,  following 
the  inevitable  tactics  of  his  race  before  great  invas- 
ions, he  certainly  retired  with  his  forces  into  the 
mountains.  It  was  not  even  necessary  on  this  occa- 
sion to  fall  upon  the  retreating  enemy.  But  when 
one  reads  of  the  Welsh  retiring  to  the  mountains, 
the  natural  tendency  to  think  of  them  huddhng 
among  rocks  and  caves  must  be  resisted.  The 
Welsh  mountains,  even  the  loftiest,  in  those  days 
were  very  thickly  sprinkled  with  oak  forests,  and  in 
the  innumerable  valleys  and  foot-hills  there  was 
splendid  pasture  for  large  herds  of  stock.  There 
must  have  been  plenty  of  dweUings,  too,  among  these 
uplands,  and  the  Welsh  were  adepts  at  raising  tem- 
porary shelters  of  stone  thatched  with  heather. 

Owen  now  might  well  be  excused  if  he  really  began 
to  think  nimself  chosen  of  the  gods.  At  any  rate 
he  was  justified  in  the  proud  boast  that  Shakespeare 
at  this  time  puts  into  his  mouth  : 

"  Three  times  hath  Henry  Bolingbroke  made  head 
Against  my  power.     Thrice  from  the  banks  of  Wye 
And  sandy-bottomed  Severn  have  I  sent 
Him  bootless  home,  and  weather-beaten  back." 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  1 8 1 

Shakespeare  is  accurate  enough  so  far,  but  he  is 
sadly  astray  when  he  makes  the  news  of  Mortimer's 
capture  and  the  defeat  of  Pilleth  reach  Henry  upon 
the  same  day  as  the  victory  of  Percy  over  the  Scots 
at  Homildon.  The  former  was  fought  in  the  pre- 
vious June,  whereas  the  latter  took  place  while 
i  Henry  was  in  the  very  throes  of  his  struggle  with 
\  the  Welsh  elements  and  Owen's  art  magic.  In  fact 
the  news  of  the  crushing  defeat  of  the  Scots  reached 
him  at  the  moment  of  his  arrival  at  home,  after  his 
disastrous  campaign,  and  might  well  have  afforded 
him  much  consolation,  unless  perchance  the  contrast 
between  his  own  luckless  campaign  and  that  of  Hot- 
spur tempered  his  joy  and  galled  his  pride. 

This  same  battle  of  Homildon,  or  Humbledon, 
near  Wooler,  exercised  considerable  influence  upon 
the  affairs  of  Owen.  I  have  already  remarked  that 
forty  thousand  Scots,  having  with  them  many  French 
knights  and  gentlemen,  were  across  the  border.  They 
were  commanded  by  Earl  Douglas,  who  had  most 
of  the  chivalry  and  nobility  of  Scotland  at  his  back. 
There  was  no  particular  excuse  for  the  invasion  ;  it 
was  a  marauding  expedition,  pure  and  simple,  on  an 
immense  scale,  and  it  swept  through  Northumberland 
and  Durham  almost  unopposed,  for  the  forces  of 
Percy  were  too  inadequate  for  even  his  venturous 
spirit  to  offer  battle. 

Laden  with  the  spoils  of  two  counties  the  Scots 
turned  their  faces  homeward  entirely  satisfied  with 
their  luck.  Unfortunately  for  them,  they  elected  to 
divide  their  forces,  ten  thousand  men,  including  the 
commander  and  all  the  choice  spirits  of  the  army. 


1 82  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402- 

taking  a  separate  route.  As  these  latter  approached 
the  Scottish  border  they  found  their  path  barred 
by  Hotspur,  who  had  slipped  round  them,  with  a 
slightly  superior  force.  They  would  have  been  glad 
enough  to  get  home  with  their  booty,  but  Percy 
gave  them  no  option  ;  they  had  nothing  for  it  but 
to  fight. 

The  result  of  the  battle  was  disastrous  to  the 
Scots.  The  English  archers  broke  every  effort  they 
made  to  get  to  close  quarters,  and  finally  routed 
them  with  scarcely  any  assistance  from  the  men-at- 
arms.  An  immense  number  were  slain ;  five  hund- 
red were  drowned  in  the  Tweed  ;  eighty  noblemen 
and  knights,  the  flower  of  their  chivalry,  including 
the  Earl  of  Douglas  himself,  were  captured.  A 
goodly  haul  for  Percy  in  the  shape  of  ransom  !  But 
it  was  these  very  prisoners  and  this  very  question  of 
ransom  that  filled  Hotspur's  cup  of  bitterness  against 
the  King  and  brought  about  his  league  with  Glyn- 
dwr. The  congratulations  which  went  speeding 
northward  from  Henry  to  his  "  dear  cousin  "  were 
somewhat  damped  by  instructions  that  the  Scottish 
prisoners  were  on  no  account  to  be  set  at  liberty 
or  ransomed,  but  were  in  fact  to  be  handed  over 
to  himself — contrary  to  all  custom  and  privilege. 
Large  sums  were  already  owing  to  Percy  for  his  out- 
lay in  North  Wales  on  the  King's  behalf,  and  he  was 
sullen,  as  we  know,  at  the  King's  neglect  of  his 
brother-in-law  Mortimer,  still  lying  unransomed  in 
Owen's  hands.  He  was  now  enraged,  and  his  rage 
bore  fruit  a  few  months  later  on  the  bloody  field  of 
Shrewsbury.     Nor  did  Henry  see  the  face  of  one  of 


1402]  The  King  and  Hotspur  183 

his  prisoners  till  they  appeared  in  arms  against  him, 
as  the  price  of  their  Hberty,  upon  that  fateful  day. 

The  close  of  this  year  was  marked  by  no  events  of 
note ;  marriage  bells  were  in  the  air,  for  the  King 
was  espousing  Joanna  of  Brittany,  and  Mortimer, 
now  embittered  against  Henry,  alHed  himself  with 
Glyndwr's  fortunes  and  married  his  fourth  daughter, 
Jane. 

Mortimer's  alliance  was  indeed  of  immense  value 
to  Glyndwr.  He  was  not  only  the  guardian  and 
natural  protector  of  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne, 
his  nephew,  but  he  was  a  possibly  acceptable  candi- 
date himself,  in  the  event  of  a  fresh  shuffling  of  the 
cards.  He  had  moreover  large  possessions  and 
castles  in  the  South  Wales  Marches,  and  in  the  Vale 
of  Clwyd,  whose  occupants  would  now  be  irrevocably 
committed  to  the  Welsh  cause. 

The  monk  of  Evesham  tells  us  that  the  marriage 
was  celebrated  with  the  greatest  solemnity  about 
the  end  of  November,  though  where  the  ceremony 
took  place  we  do  not  know.  A  fortnight  afterwards 
Mortimer  wrote  to  his  Radnor  tenants  this  letter  in 
French,  which  has  been  fortunately  preserved  and 
is  now  in  the  British  Museum  : 

"  Very  dear  and  well-beloved,  I  greet  you  much  and 
make  known  to  you  that  Oweyn  Glyndwr  has  raised  a 
quarrel  of  which  the  object  is,  if  King  Richard  be  alive, 
to  restore  him  to  his  crown  ;  and  if  not  that,  my  hon- 
oured nephew,  who  is  the  right  heir  to  the  said  crown, 
shall  be  King  of  England,  and  that  the  said  Oweyn  will 
assert  his  right  in  Wales.  And  I,  seeing  and  considering 
that   the   said    quarrel   is   good   and    reasonable,    have 


184  Owen  Glyndwr  [1402 

consented  to  join  in  it,  and  to  aid  and  maintain  it,  and 
by  the  grace  of  God  to  a  good  end,  Amen.  I  ardently 
hope,  and  from  my  heart,  that  you  will  support  and 
enable  me  to  bring  this  struggle  of  mine  to  a  successful 
issue.  I  have  moreover  to  inform  you  that  the  lord- 
ships of  Melenyth,  Werthresson,  Rayadr,  the  Commote 
of  Udor,  Arwystly,  Keveilloc,  and  Kereynon  are  lately 
come  into  our  possession.  Wherefore  I  moreover  entreat 
you  that  you  will  forbear  making  inroad  into  my  said 
lands,  or  doing  any  damage  to  my  said  tenantry,  and 
that  you  furnish  them  with  provisions  at  a  certain 
reasonable  price,  as  you  would  wish  that  I  should  treat 
you  ;  and  upon  this  very  point  be  pleased  to  send  me  an 
answer.  Very  dear  and  well-beloved,  God  give  you 
grace  to  prosper  in  your  beginnings,  and  to  arrive  at  a 
happy   time.      Written   at    Melenyth   the   13th    day  of 

December. 

"  Edmund  Mortimer. 

''  To  my  very  dear  and  well-beloved  John  Greyndor, 
Howell  Vaughan,  and  all  the  gentles  and  commons  of 
Radnor,  and  Prestremde."  * 

This  note  was  no  doubt  chiefly  aimed  at  Sir  John 
Greyndor,  or  Grindor,  who  guarded  the  King's 
interests  and  commanded  several  castles  at  various 
times.  It  was  the  last  incident  of  moment  in  the 
year  1402. 

*  Presteign. 


kOeO 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  BATTLE  OF  SHREWSBURY 

1403 

THE  opening  of  the  year  1403  was  a  time  full  of 
promise  for  Owen's  cause.  The  western  cas- 
tles by  whose  capture  he  set  such  store  were 
hard  pressed.  Llandovery  in  the  Vale  of  Towy  had 
been  reduced  ;  Llandeilo  Fawr,  close  by,  burnt.  The 
noble  castle  of  Dynevor,  which  had  been  the  royal 
seat  of  the  Princes  of  South  Wales,  was  in  difficult- 
ies, and  a  descent  on  the  southern  shores  of  Eng- 
land by  the  French  was  once  more  looked  for.  The 
Scots,  too,  had  again  plucked  up  their  courage,  and 
threatened  to  give  trouble.  King  Henry  was  beg- 
ging or  demanding  loans  from  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men,  that  he  might  be  enabled  to  hold  his 
own  against  the  Welsh,  the  Scots,  and  the  French. 
His  affairs  in  truth  were  anything  but  prosperous. 
The  Prince  of  Wales,  however,  was  at  his  post  at 
Shrewsbury,  though  pressing  for  men  and  money. 
He  informs  his  father  that  Glyndwr  is  preparing  to 
invade  England,  and  Henry  communicates  the  dis- 
quieting news  to  his  council,  though  this  is  some- 

185 


i86  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

what  later,  since  in  May  the  Prince  is  writing  urgent 
letters  for  relief.  In  these  he  declares  that  his  sol- 
diers will  remain  no  longer  with  him  unless  they  are 
paid,  and  that  Glyndwr  is  levying  all  the  power  of 
North  and  South  Wales  to  destroy  the  Marches  and 
the  adjoining  counties  of  England.  The  Prince  goes 
on  to  say  :  ''  If  our  men  are  withdrawn  from  us  we 
must  retire  to  England  and  be  disgraced  forever. 
At  present  we  have  very  great  expenses,  and  we 
have  raised  the  largest  sum  in  our  power  to  meet 
them  from  our  little  stock  of  jewels."  This,  it  may 
f>erhaps  be  again  remarked,  is  the  London  roue  and 
trifler  of  popular  fancy  ! 

"  Our  two  castles  of  Harlech  and  Lampadarn  are  be- 
sieged and  we  must  relieve  and  victual  them  within  ten 
days,  and  besides  that  protect  the  March  around  us  with 
one-third  of  our  forces.  And  now  since  we  have  fully 
shown  the  state  of  these  districts,  please  to  take  such 
measures  as  shall  seem  best  to  you  for  the  safety  of 
these  same  parts.  And  be  well  assured  we  have  fully 
shown  to  you  the  peril  of  whatever  may  happen  here  if 
remedy  be  not  sent  in  time." 

Reinforcements  of  some  kind  must  have  reached 
the  ardent  young  soldier  very  soon.  For  within  a 
week  or  two  he  exercised  a  most  signal  piece  of  ven- 
geance against  Glyndwr  and  apparently  without 
opposition.  This  was  no  less  than  the  complete  de- 
struction of  Sycherth  and  Glyndyfrdwy,  while  Owen 
was  busy  upon  the  Merioneth  coast.  As  all  we 
know  of  this  interesting  affair  is  from  the  Prince's 
own  pen,  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  in  full  the 
letter  by  which  he  communicated  the  news  to  his 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  187 

father  and  his  council.  The  original  is  preserved  in 
the  British  Museum,  and  is  in  the  French  language. 
It  is  dated  May  15th,  no  year  unfortunately  being 
affixed.  Some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  latter 
detail  exists,  but  this  year  (1403),  the  latest  of  those 
in  dispute,  seems  to  me  the  likeliest. 

"  Very  dear  and  entirely  well  beloved,  we  greet  you 
much  from  our  whole  heart,  thanking  you,  very  dearly 
for  the  attention  you  have  paid  to  everything  needful 
that  concerned  us  during  our  absence,  and  we  pray  of 
you  very  earnestly  the  continuance  of  your  good  and 
kind  disposition  ;  as  our  trust  is  in  you.  By  way  of 
news  that  have  here  occurred,  if  you  wish  to  hear  of 
them,  we  have  among  other  matters  been  lately  informed 
that  Owen  de  Glyndowrdy  has  assembled  his  forces,  and 
those  of  other  rebels  adhering  to  him  in  great  number  ; 
purposing  to  commit  inroads,  and  in  case  of  any  resist- 
ance being  made  to  him  by  the  English,  to  come  to 
battle  with  them,  for  so  he  vaunted  to  his  people. 
Wherefore  we  took  our  forces  and  marched  to  a  place  of 
the  said  Oweyn  well  built,  which  was  his  principal  man- 
sion^ called  Saghern  [Sycherth],  where  we  thought  we 
should  have  found  him,  if  he  had  an  inclination  to  fight 
in  the  manner  he  had  said,  but  on  our  arrival  there,  we 
found  nobody  ;  and  therefore  caused  the  whole  place 
to  be  burnt,  and  several  other  houses  near  it  be- 
longing to  his  tenants.  We  thence  marched  straight 
to  his  other  place  of  Glyndowerdy  to  seek  for  him  there 
and  we  caused  a  fine  lodge  in  his  park  to  be  destroyed 
by  fire,  and  laid  waste  all  the  country  around.  We 
there  halted  for  the  night  and  certain  of  our  people  sal- 
lied forth  into  the  country,  and  took  a  gentleman  of  the 
neighbourhood  who  was  one  of  the  said  Oweyn's  chief 


1 88  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

captains.  This  person  offered  five  hundred  pounds  for 
his  ransom  to  preserve  his  life,  and  to  be  allowed  two 
weeks  for  the  purpose  of  raising  that  sum  of  money  ;  but 
the  offer  was  not  accepted  and  he  received  death,  as  did 
several  of  his  companions,  who  were  taken  the  same  day. 
We  then  proceeded  to  the  Commote  of  Edeyrnion  in 
Merionethshire,  and  there  laid  waste  a  fine  and  populous 
country  ;  thence  we  went  to  Powys,  and  there  being  a 
want  of  provender  in  Wales  for  horses,  we  made  our 
people  carry  oats  with  them  and  pursued  our  march  ; 
and  in  order  to  give  you  full  intelligence  of  this  march 
of  ours  and  of  everything  that  has  occurred  here,  we 
send  to  you  our  well  beloved  esquire,  John  de  Waterton, 
to  whom  you  will  be  pleased  to  give  entire  faith,  and 
credence  in  what  he  shall  report  to  you  touching  the 
events  above  mentioned.  And  may  our  Lord  have  you 
always  in  his  holy  keeping.  Given  under  our  Seal  at 
Shrewsbury  the  15th  day  of  May." 

If,  as  I  think,  1403  is  the  right  year  to  which  we 
should  assign  this  letter,  it  may  seem  strange  that 
Glyndwr  should  have  left  his  estates  to  their  fate. 
On  the  other  hand,  Sycherth,  or  Saghern  as~  the 
Prince  calls  it,  actually  touched  Offa's  Dyke  and  the 
English  border,  while  Glyndyfrdwy,  as  I  have  before 
noted,  was  within  sight  of  Dinas  Bran,  the  grim  out- 
post of  English  power.  Glyndwr's  attention  had 
been  largely  devoted  to  South  Wales  and  was  now 
bent  on  securing  those  great  castles  on  the  Merion- 
eth and  Carnarvon  coast,  which  with  their  sea  con- 
nections threatened  him  perpetually  in  his  rear. 
Above  all,  his  aspirations  had  now  soared  to  such  a 
height  and  the  stake  he  was  playing  for  was  so  great 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  1 89 

it  is  not  likely  that  the  loss  of  a  couple  of  manor- 
houses  and  a  few  other  buildings  was  of  much  im- 
port to  him.  If  he  won  his  cause,  they  were  of  no 
moment  at  all.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  lost  it,  all 
was  over ;  they  would  certainly  be  no  longer  his. 
A  want  of  local  knowledge  has  led  many  historians 
astray  in  the  matter  of  these  manors  of  Glyndwr's, 
and  they  have  repeated  each  other's  mistakes,  ignor- 
ing the  Cynllaeth  property,  and  only  transferring  the 
name  of  its  much  larger  house  to  the  banks  of  the 
Dee.  Even  Pennant  falls  into  the  error,  and  is  prob- 
ably responsible  for  that  of  many  of  his  successors. 

This  is  the  more  curious  in  view  of  Prince  Henry's 
letter,  distinctly  stating  that  he  first  destroyed 
Owen's  principal  mansion  at  that  point  and  natur- 
ally so,  as  it  would  be  the  first  in  his  path  on  the 
direct  route  from  Shrewsbury,  following  the  valleys 
of  the  Vyrnwy  and  the  Tanat,  and  then  up  the 
Cynllaeth  brook,  where  Sycherth  lies.  Prince 
Henry's  failure  to  spell  the  name  of  Owen's  resi- 
dence intelligibly  is  of  no  moment  whatever,  and  is 
almost  lucid  compared  to  some  of  the  Norman  at- 
tempts to  render  Welsh  names  into  English. 

Sir  Henry  Ellis  and  others  who,  though  realising 
that  Owen  had  two  separate  properties,  are  not 
familiar  with  the  district,  fall  back  on  Leland,  who 
alludes  to  Rhaggat,  the  present  seat  of  the  Lloyds, 
as  having  been  ''  a  place  of  Glyndwr's,"  and  explain 
Prince  Henry's  **  Sagherne  "  in  that  manner.  Rhag- 
gat, beyond  a  doubt,  whatever  dwelling  may  then 
have  stood  there,  was  the  property  of  Glyndwr,  see- 
ing that  it  was  on  his  Glyndyfrdwy  estate  and  less 


IQO  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

than  two  miles  up  the  Dee  from  his  Glyndyfrdwy 
house.  But  the  Prince  would  have  had  to  pass  by 
the  latter  to  reach  Rhaggat,  reversing  the  stated  or- 
der of  his  operations,  whereas  his  short  campaign  as 
described  by  himself  took  the  objects  of  his  attack, 
Sycherth,  Glyndyfrdwy,  and  the  Vale  of  Edeyrnion 
in  due  order.  These  are  matters,  it  is  true,  rather 
of  local  than  of  general  interest.  Still  as  the  locality 
is  one  which  great  numbers  of  strangers  visit  for  its 
beauty,  I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  entering 
somewhat  minutely  into  these  details. 

While  the  Prince  was  thus  doing  his  best  upon  a 
small  scale  near  the  border,  and  sore  distressed  for 
money  to  pay  his  men,  the  castles  of  Harlech,  Cric- 
cieth,  Conway,  Carnarvon,  and  Rhuddlan  were  hard 
pressed.  Being  in  the  royal  counties,  they  were 
held  and  manned  at  the  royal  charge  and  were  feel- 
ing to  the  full  the  pinch  of  poverty.  Owen,  entirely 
satisfied  with  the  prospect  of  their  speedy  reduction, 
moved  south  about  the  time  that  the  Prince  was 
wasting  his  property  on  the  Cynllaeth  and  the  Dee. 
We  hear  of  him  in  piteous  letters  for  aid,  sent  by 
Jankyn  Hanard,  the  Constable  of  Dynevor  Castle,  on 
the  Towy,  to  his  brother — Constable  of  Brecon,  who 
was  in  but  little  better  plight.  In  this  correspond- 
ence the  writer  declares  that  Glyndwr  dominates  the 
whole  neighbouring  country  with  8240  spears  at  his 
back  ;  that  Rhys  Gethin,  the  victor  of  Pilleth,  is 
with  him,  also  Henry  Don,  Rhys  Ddu,  and  Rhys  ap 
Griffith  ap  Llewelyn,  the  son  of  that  gallant  gentle- 
man of  Cardiganshire  who  made  such  a  cheerful  sac- 
rifice of  his  head,  it  will  be  remembered,  two  years 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  191 

before,  when  King  Henry  was  at  Strata  Florida, 
trying  in  vain  to  come  to  blows  with  Owen. 

**  There  is  great  peril  for  me  "continues  the  panic- 
stricken  Constable,  **  for  they  [Glyndwr's  soldiers] 
have  made  a  vow  that  they  will  all  have  us  ded 
therein  ;  wherefor  I  pray  thee  that  thou  wilt  not 
boggle  us,  but  send  to  us  warning  within  a  short  time 
whether  we  schule  have  any  help  or  no."  The  garri- 
son, he  reports,  are  fainting,  in  victuals  and  men, 
and  they  would  all  be  glad  enough  to  steal  away  to 
Brecon,  where  the  castle  is  in  a  better  state  for 
holding  out.  "  Jenkin  ap  Llewelyn,  William  Gwyn, 
Thomas  ap  David,  and  moni  other  gentils  be  in  per- 
son with  Owen."  He  tells  also  of  the  capture  of 
Carmarthen  just  effected  by  Glyndwr, —  both  town 
and  castles, — with  a  loss  of  fifty  men  to  the  defenders. 
A  second  letter,  written  early  in  July,  a  few  days 
only  after  the  first  one  and  from  the  same  frightened 
commandant,  describes  Glyndwr  as  still  halting  in 
his  mind  as  to  whether  or  no  he  should  burn  Car- 
marthen. It  goes  on  to  relate  how  Owen  and  most 
of  his  army  moved  forward  to  the  great  castle  of 
Kidwelly,  which  stood  upon  the  seacoast  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Towy,  some  ten  miles  distant. 

But  in  the  meantime  the  Anglo-Flemings  from 
Western  Pembroke  and  Gower,  of  all  districts  in 
Wales  the  most  hostile  to  a  Cymric  revival,  were 
coming  up  again  in  strong  force,  under  their  lord 
and  governor,  Thomas  Earl  Carew.  Glyndwr  halted 
on  July  9th  at  St.  Clear's  and  opened  negotiations 
with  Carew,  influenced  probably  by  the  view  that 
Western  Pembroke  with  its  sturdy  Teutonic  stock, 


192  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

and  line  of  impregnable  castles,  would  prove  more 
difficult  to  conquer  and  to  hold  than  the  effort  was 
worth.  While  pourparlers  were  proceeding,  he  sent 
forward  seven  hundred  men,  to  discover  if  it  were 
possible  to  get  to  the  rear  of  the  Anglo-Flemish 
force,  but  they  were  cut  off  to  a  man  and  killed. 
This  was  the  most  serious  loss  the  Welsh  had  yet 
sustained.  Carew,  however,  did  not  follow  up  his 
advantage,  and  Glyndwr,  who,  we  are  told,  had  much 
booty  stored  in  what  was  left  of  Carmarthen,  made 
his  headquarters  there  for  several  days. 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  Owen  step  by  step 
through  the  hurly-burly  of  ruin,  fire,  and  slaughter 
which  he  created  during  this  summer  in  South  Wales. 
It  would  be  wearisome  work,  even  if  we  could  track 
his  steps  from  castle  to  castle,  and  from  town  to 
town  with  accuracy.  But  there  is  ample  enough 
evidence  of  his  handiwork  and  of  the  terror  he 
spread,  in  the  panic-stricken  correspondence  that 
came  out  of  the  Marches  from  all  sorts  of  people 
during  these  months,  and  which  anyone  may  read 
to-day.  We  hear  from  time  to  time  of  his  lieuten- 
ants, of  Rhys  Gethin,  the  Tudors,  and  many  others, 
but  no  name  in  the  minds  of  men  ever  seems  to  ap- 
proach that  of  the  dread  chief,  who  was  the  life  and 
organiser  of  every  movement.  Whether  Owen  is 
present  in  person  at  a  siege  or  a  battle  or  not,  it  is 
always  with  his  enemies, "  Owen's  men,"  and  ^'  Owen's 
intentions,"  "  Owen's  magic,  ambition,  and  wicked- 
ness" ;  and  at  the  terror  of  his  name  nervous  people 
and  monks  were  trembling  far  into  the  midland 
counties.     An  invasion  of  England  was  thoroughly 


1403J  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  193 

expected  at  various  times  during  1403,  and  such  a 
visit  from  a  warrior  who  could  call  at  will  the  light- 
ning and  the  tempest  to  his  aid,  and  whose  track  was 
marked  by  a  desolation,  so  it  was  rumoured,  more 
pitiless  than  even  medieval  ethics  approved  of,  was 
a  terrible  eventuality.  In  the  eastern  counties  men 
were  informed  for  certain  that  he  was  soon  to  be  at 
Northampton,  while  the  monks  of  St.  Albans  hung 
a  supplication  upon  the  chancel  wall  to  the  Almighty 
God  to  spare  them  from  Glyndwr. 

John  Faireford,  Receiver  of  Brecon,  writes  urg- 
ently to  the  authorities  of  the  county  of  Hereford, 
telling  them  how  all  the  gentry  of  Carmarthen  had 
now  risen  treasonably  against  the  King,  and  how  his 
friend,  the  Constable  of  Dynevor,  was  in  vain  appeal- 
ing to  him  for  help ;  how  Owain  Glyndwr  with  his 
false  troops  was  at  Llandover,  the  men  of  that  castle 
being  assured  to  him,  and  the  Welsh  soldiers  all 
lying  around  the  castle  at  their  ease  ;  and  again  how 
Glyndwr  was  on  his  march  to  that  very  town  of 
Brecon  for  the  destruction  of  the  same,  "  which  God 
avert."  Faireford  begs  them  to  rally  all  the  counties 
round  and  to  prepare  them  at  once  for  resisting  these 
same  rebels  with  all  haste  possible  for  the  avoiding 
of  greater  peril.  **And  you  will  know,"  writes  he, 
''that  all  the  Welsh  nation,  being  taken  a  little  by 
surprise,  is  adhering  to  this  evil  purpose  of  rebel- 
Hon,  and  if  any  expedition  of  cavalry  can  be  made 
be  pleased  to  do  that  first  in  these  Lordships  of 
Brecon  and  Cantref  Sellys." 

Within  a  few  days  a  letter  from  the  same  hand  is 
forwarded  to  the  King  himself. 


194  Owen  Glyndwr  [ho3 

*'  My  most  noble  and  dread  Lord,  I  have  received  at 
Brecon  certain  letters  addressed  to  me  by  John  Skid- 
more,  the  which  enclosed  within  this  letter,  I  present  unto 
your  high  person  by  the  bearer  of  these,  that  it  may 
please  your  gracious  lordship  to  consider  the  mischief 
and  perils  comprised  in  them,  and  to  ordain  thereupon 
speedy  remedy  for  the  destruction  and  resistance  of  the 
rebels  in  those  parts  of  South  Wales,  who  are  treacher- 
ously raised  against  you  and  your  Majesty,  so  that  your 
castles  and  towns  and  the  faithful  men  in  them  be  not 
thus  ruined  and  destroyed  for  lack  of  aid  and  succour. 
And  besides,  may  it  please  your  lordship  to  know  that 
the  rebels  of  this  your  lordship  of  Brecon,  together  with 
their  adherents,  are  lying  near  the  town  of  Brecon  doing 
all  the  mischief  they  can  to  its  town  and  neighbourhood, 
and  they  purpose,  all  of  them  together,  to  burn  all  per- 
taining to  the  English  in  these  same  parts  if  they  be  not 
resisted  in  haste.  The  whole  of  the  Welsh  nation  are  by 
all  these  said  parties  conformed  in  this  rebellion,  and 
with  good  will  consent  together  as  only  appears  from 
day  to  day.  May  it  please  your  royal  Majesty  to  ordain 
a  final  destruction  of  all  the  false  nation  aforesaid,  or 
otherwise  all  your  faithful  ones  in  these  parts  are  in 
great  peril." 

The  sheriff  of  Hereford  had  been  warned  by  the 
King  to  proceed  against  Brecon  with  the  forces  of 
his  county,  and  relieve  the  siege.  This  he  reports 
later,  that  he  has  done  with  some  success ;  slaying 
240  of  the  Welsh,  though  with  what  loss  to  himself 
he  refrains  from  mentioning.  This  diversion  seems 
in  no  way  to  have  relieved  the  general  situation ;  for 
after  describing  the  fight  at  Brecon  he  goes  on  to 
state  that 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  195 

"  these  same  rebels  purpose  again  to  come  in  haste 
with  a  great  multitude  to  take  the  town  (which  God 
avert)  and  to  approach  to  the  Marches  and  counties  ad- 
joining to  the  destruction  of  them,  which  force  we  have 
no  power  to  resist  without  your  most  earnest  aid  and 
succour,  and  this  greatly  displeases  us  by  reason  of  the 
grievous  costs  and  labours  which  it  will  be  needful  for 
us  to  sustain.  In  reference  to  which  matters,  our  most 
dread  and  sovereign  Lord,  may  it  please  you  to  ordain 
speedy  remedy,  which  cannot  be  as  we  deem  without 
your  gracious  arrival  in  these  parts  for  no  other  hope 
remains." 

This  appeal  is  signed  "your  humble  lieges  the 
Sheriffs,  Knights,  Esquires,  and  Commons  of  your 
County  of  Hereford."  Hugh  de  Waterton  follows 
in  the  same  alarmist  strain  : 

"  For  the  honour  of  God  and  the  preservation  of  your 
estate  and  honour  may  it  please  your  Highness  to  have 
this  in  your  remembrance  and  soon  to  cause  to  commit 
to  such  an  array  of  sufficient  persons,  knights,  and 
esquires,  as  shall  be  willing  to  give  their  whole  diligence 
and  trouble  for  the  protection  of  your  honour  in  the 
preservation  of  your  faithful  lieges  and  the  punishment 
of  your  rebels,  or  otherwise  the  only  thing  that  can  be 
said,  is,  it  is  likely  you  will  find  all  in  confusion  which 
God  avert." 

Then  follows  William  de  Beauchamp  writing  to  the 
same  purpose  in  a  long,  rambling  letter  to  the  King. 
Lastly  Richard  Kingeston,  Archdeacon  of  Hereford 
and  Dean  of  Windsor  and  general  administrator  for 
the  King  on  the  Southern  Marches,  within  the  same 
period  of  panic,  appeals  direct  to  his  Majesty. 


196  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

In  one  of  these  missives  he  says : 

"  From  day  to  day  letters  are  arriving  from  Wales  by 
which  you  may  learn  that  the  whole  country  is  lost  un- 
less you  go  there  as  quick  as  possible.  Be  pleased  to  set 
forth  with  all  your  power  and  march  by  night  as  well 
as  by  day,  for  the  salvation  of  those  parts.  It  will  be  a 
great  disgrace  as  well  as  damage  to  lose  in  the  beginning 
of  your  reign  a  country  which  your  ancestors  gained 
and  retained  so  long  ;  for  people  speak  very  unfavour- 
ably;     .     .     ." 

This  is  signed  "  Your  lowly  creature,  Richard  Kinge- 
ston,"  with  a  postscript  added,  ^'  And  for  God's  love, 
my  liege  Lord,  think  on  yourself." 

The  second  letter,  written  somewhat  later,  con- 
tains the  following : 

"  There  are  come  into  our  country  more  than  four  hun- 
dred of  the  rebels  of  Owen  and  they  have  captured  and 
robbed  within  your  county  of  Hereford  many  men  and 
beasts  in  great  number  as  Miles  Walter  the  bearer  of 
these  presents  will  more  fully  tell  you  by  mouth  than  I 
can  write  to  you  at  present,  to  whom  may  it  please  you 
to  give  your  faith  and  credence  in  that  on  which  he  shall 
inform  you  for  the  preservation  of  your  said  county  and 
of  all  the  country  around." 

The  said  Miles  Walter,  moreover,  is 

"  the  most  valiant  man  at  arms  in  Herefordshire  or  the 
Marches  as  he  has  served  his  Majesty  well  and  lost 
all  that  he  hath.  He  begs  for  a  hundred  lances  and 
six  hundred  archers  at  once  until  your  most  gracious 
arrival  for  the  salvation  of  us  all ;  for,  my  most  dread 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  197 

Lord,  you  will  find  for  certain  that  if  you  do  not  come 
in  your  own  person  to  await  your  rebels  in  Wales  you  will 
not  find  a  single  gentleman  that  will  stop  in  your  said 
county  [Hereford],  and  leave  naught  that  you  do  not 
come,  for  no  man  that  may  counsel  you  to  the  contrary. 
This  day  the  Welshmen  suppose  that  and  trust  that  you 
will  not  come  there  and  therefore  for  God's  love  make 
them  false  men.  .  .  .  For  salvation  of  your  shire 
and  Marches  trust  you  naught  to  any  lieutenant. 
"  Written  at  Hereford  in  very  great  haste. 
"Your  humble  creature  and 

continual  orator." 

I  have  somewhat  tried  the  reader's  patience,  per- 
haps, with  such  a  multiplication  of  extracts  all  sound- 
ing the  same  note ;  but  in  dealing  with  scenes  so 
scanty  of  all  record  save  the  bare  detail  of  siege  and 
slaughter,  it  seems  to  me  that  human  voices,  full  of 
the  fears  and  alarms  of  the  moment,  coming  to  us  out 
of  this  almost  forgotten  period,  have  more  than  ordin- 
ary value.  Glyndwr,  too,  at  this  moment  steps  out 
of  his  armour  and  gives  us  one  of  those  brief  glimpses 
of  the  man  within,  which  one  so  eagerly  grasps  at. 
To  what  extent  he  was  himself  imbued  with  the 
superstition  that  surged  around  him  and  so  con- 
spicuously centred  upon  his  own  name,  must  always 
be  a  matter  of  curiosity.  That  he  was  very  far  from 
a  sceptic,  however,  he  gives  us  conclusive  proof ;  for 
while  lying  at  Carmarthen  after  settling  matters  with 
Carew,  he  was  seized  with  a  desire  to  consult  a 
soothsayer ;  and  acting  upon  this  he  sent  for  a  cert- 
ain Welshman  out  of  Gower,  whose  reputation  for 
forecasting  future  events,  and  "  skill  in  interpreting 


198  Owen  Gtyndwr 


[1403 


the  Brut,"  was  great.  Hopkyn  ap  Thomas  was  the 
name  of  this  prophet  of  Gower,  and  when  Owen  de- 
manded what  the  future  had  in  store  for  himself  and 
his  cause,  the  local  wise  man  showed  himself  at  any 
rate  no  sycophant,  though  a  false  prophet,  as  it  so 
turned  out.  For  he  boldly  informed  the  Welsh 
leader  that  within  a  short  time  he  would  be  taken 
prisoner  under  a  black  banner  between  Carmarthen 
and  Gower. 

But  all  this  earlier  period  of  the  summer,  while 
Glyndwr  was  marching  this  way  and  that  throughout 
South  Wales,  now  repelling  the  Flemings  on  the 
west,  now  ravaging  the  English  border  on  the  east, 
matters  in  England  closely  connected  with  his  own 
fortunes  were  quickly  ripening  for  one  of  the  most 
critical  events  of  this  period  of  English  history.  The 
Prince  of  Wales,  after  his  brief  raid  on  Sycherth  and 
Glyndyfrdwy,  had  remained  inactive  at  Shrewsbury, 
unable  from  lack  of  means  to  move  the  levies  of  the 
four  border  counties,  who  remained  in  whole  or  part, 
and  somewhat  discontented,  beneath  his  banner.  The 
Pell  Rolls  show  a  note  for  July  17th,  of  the  sum  of 
i^8io8  for  the  wages  of  four  barons,  20  knights,  476 
esquires,  and  2500  archers.  The  King,  who  had  been 
by  no  means  deaf  to  the  frantic  appeals  which  had 
come  pouring  in  upon  him  from  Wales,  had  fully  in- 
tended to  act  upon  them  in  person.  He  was  always 
as  ready,  however,  to  answer  a  summons  from  the 
North  as  he  was  reluctant  to  face  the  truth  in  the 
West.  Wales  had  been  virtually  wrested  from  him 
by  Glyndwr,  and  he  had  ample  warning  that  the 
latter  was  even  preparing  for  an  invasion  of  Eng- 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  199 

land,  where  there  existed  a  growing  faction,  wearied 
by  his  ceaseless  demands  for  money,  which  produced 
so  little  glory  and  so  much  disgrace. 

But  once  again  he  turned  from  scenes  that  for  a 
long  time  had  been  a  standing  reproach,  both  to 
himself  and  England,  and  started  for  the  North. 
Even  if  he  had  been  only  bent  on  assisting  the 
Percys  in  stemming  a  threatened  invasion  of  the 
Scots,  one  might  well  suppose  that  the  virtual  loss  of 
what  was  a  considerable  portion  of  his  dominions 
near  home,  together  with  an  equally  imminent  inva- 
sion from  that  quarter,  would  demand  his  first  atten- 
tion. But  there  is  not  even  this  much  to  be  said. 
The  King  cherished  aspirations  to  be  another  Ed- 
ward the  First ;  he  had  already  achieved  a  precarious 
footing  in  Scotland  and  made  grants  of  conquered 
territory  across  the  border  to  English  subjects,  al- 
ways providing,  of  course,  they  could  maintain  them- 
selves there.  One  has  the  strange  picture  of  an 
otherwise  sensible  and  long-headed  monarch  accept- 
ing perennial  defeat  and  defiance  in  Wales,  while 
straining  after  the  annexation  of  distant  territories 
that  were  as  warlike  as  they  were  poor.  The  Percys 
had  in  fact  for  the  past  few  months  been  playing  at 
war  with  the  Scots,  and  deceiving  Henry,  while 
laying  plans  for  a  deep  game  in  quite  another  part 
of  Britain.  The  King,  stern  and  at  times  even  cruel 
towards  the  world  in  general,  was  astonishingly  com- 
placent and  trustful  towards  that  arch-plotter,  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  who  in  defiance  of  his 
master,  though  in  strict  accord  with  equity,  had  kept 
his  hold  upon  the  Scottish  prisoners  of  Homildon ; 


200  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

answering  the  King's  letters  of  remonstrance  in  light 
and  even  bantering  vein.  But  now  all  trace  of  ill- 
feeling  would  seem  to  have  vanished,  as  Henry  and 
his  forces,  on  July  loth,  rest  for  a  day  or  two  at 
Higham  Ferrers,  on  their  way  to  the  assistance  of 
the  Percys ;  not  to  stem  an  invasion  of  the  Scots, 
but  to  further  the  King's  preposterous  and  ill-timed 
designs  upon  their  territory.  But  this  mad  project 
was  nipped  in  the  bud  at  the  Northamptonshire  town 
in  a  manner  that  may  well  have  taken  Henry's 
breath  away  and  brought  him  to  his  senses. 

He  has  just  informed  his  council  that  he  has  re- 
ceived news  from  Wales  telling  him  of  the  gallant 
bearing  of  his  beloved  son,  and  orders  £\QO0  to  be 
paid  to  his  war  chest.  He  then  proceeds  to  tell 
them  that  he  is  on  his  way  to  succour  his  dear  and 
loyal  cousins,  the  Earl  of  Northumberland  and  his  son 
Henry,  in  the  conflict  which  they  have  honourably 
undertaken  for  him,  and  as  soon  as  that  campaign 
shall  have  ended,  with  the  aid  of  God  he  will  hasten 
to  Wales.  The  next  day  he  heard  that  his  "  beloved 
and  loyal  cousins  "  were  in  open  revolt  against  him, 
and,  instead  of  fighting  the  Scots,  were  hastening 
southwards  with  all  their  Homildon  prisoners  as 
allies  and  an  ever  gathering  force  to  join  Glyndwr. 

What  was  the  exact  nature  of  this  alliance,  whose 
proclamation  fell  upon  the  King  like  a  thunderclap, 
can  only  be  a  matter  of  conjecture.  There  are  whis- 
pers, as  we  know,  of  messages  and  messengers  pass- 
ing between  Glyndwr  and  Mortimer  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  Percys  on  the  other,  this  long  time. 
That  they  intended   to  act  in  unison  there  is,  of 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  201 

course,  no  doubt.  Shakespeare  has  anticipated  by 
some  years  and  used  with  notable  effect  the  famous 
•*  Tripartite  Alliance,"  which  was  signed  by  Glyndwr, 
Mortimer,  and  the  Earl  of  Northumberland  at  the 
Dean  of  Bangor's  house  at  Aberdaron  on  a  later  oc- 
casion. One  regrets  that  in  this  particular  he  is  not 
accurate,  for  the  dramatic  effect,  which  as  a  poet  he 
had  no  reason  to  resist,  is  much  more  telling  before 
the  field  of  Shrewsbury  than  it  can  be  at  any  sub- 
sequent time. 

The  well-known  scene,  where  Glyndwr,  Mortimer, 
and  Hotspur  stand  before  an  outspread  map  of  Eng- 
land, and  divide  its  territory  between  them,  is 
probably  to  thousands  of  Englishmen  their  only  dis- 
tinct vision  of  the  Welsh  chieftain  as  an  historical 
character.  But  though  this  formal  indenture,  as  we 
shall  see,  was  entered  into  much  later,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  some  very  similar  intention  existed  even 
now  in  the  minds  of  the  allies.  Glyndwr's  reward 
was  obvious.  As  to  the  throne  of  England,  Richard's 
ghost  was  to  be  resuscitated  for  the  purpose  of  creat- 
ing enthusiasm  in  certain  credulous  quarters  and 
among  the  mob  ;  but  the  young  Earl  of  March  was 
the  real  and  natural  candidate  for  the  throne.  Ed- 
mund Mortimer,  however,  stood  very  near  to  his 
young  nephew.  He  was  Hotspur's  brother-in-law, 
and  who  could  tell  what  might  happen?  He  had 
the  sympathy  of  the  Welsh,  not  only  because  his 
property  lay  in  their  country,  but  because  he  could 
boast  the  blood  of  Llewelyn  ap  lorwerth,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  intimate  connection  with  the  Welsh 
hero  himself.     The  Earl  of  Northumberland   may 


202  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

have  had  some  understanding  with  regard  to 
northern  territory,  such  as  he  bargained  for  in  later 
years,  but  of  this  we  know  nothing.  It  was  an  ill- 
managed  affair  in  any  case,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  conditions  in  case  of  victory  were  loosely  de- 
fined. 

The  King  had  reached  Lichfield  when  the  as- 
tounding news  burst  upon  him  that  he  was  betrayed, 
and  that  he  had  not  only  to  fight  Glyndwr  and  the 
Scotch,  but  to  wrestle  with  the  most  powerful  of  his 
subjects  for  his  crown.  Glyndwr  was,  of  course,  in 
the  secret,  but  plans  had  miscarried,  or  messengers 
had  gone  astray.  Without  wearying  the  reader  with 
proofs  and  dates,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  recall  the  fact 
that  on  July  12th  Owen  was  negotiating  with  Carew, 
and  for  the  next  few  days  his  hands  and  head  were 
busily  at  work  before  the  castle  of  Dynevor.  He 
had  at  that  time  no  thought  of  leaving  South  Wales, 
and  this  was  within  four  or  five  days  of  the  great 
fight  at  Shrewsbury,  nearly  a  hundred  miles  off,  which 
poets  and  romancists  have  painted  him,  of  all  people, 
as  cynically  regarding  from  the  safe  vantage-point  of 
a  distant  oak  tree  ! 

Henry,  prompt  in  an  emergency  and  every  inch  a 
soldier  when  outside  Wales,  lost  not  a  moment.  He 
had  with  him  but  a  moderate  force,  mostly  his  loyal 
Londoners.  The  Prince  of  Wales  was  near  Shrews- 
bury with  his  recent  reinforcements,  and  quickly 
summoned.  Urgent  orders  were  sent  out  to  the 
sheriffs  of  the  home  counties,  and  on  Friday,  July 
20th,  in  the  incredibly  short  space  of  five  days,  the 
King  and  Prince  entered  Shrewsbury  with  an  army 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  203 

of  nearer  thirty  than  twenty  thousand  men.  They 
were  just  in  time,  for  that  same  evening  Hotspur 
(for  his  father  had  been  detained  in  Northumberland 
by  illness)  with  a  force  usually  estimated  at  about 
15,000,  arrived  at  the  city  gates,  only  to  find  to  his 
surprise  the  royal  standard  floating  from  the  castle 
tower,  and  the  King  already  in  possession.  It  was 
then  late  in  the  afternoon  and  Hotspur  led  his  army 
to  Berwick,  a  hamlet  three  miles  to  the  north-west  of 
Shrewsbury.  Though  his  father  was  not  present,  his 
uncle,  Thomas  Percy,  Earl  of  Worcester,  had  lately 
joined  him,  having  stolen  away  from  the  side  of 
Prince  Henry,  whose  chief  adviser  he  had  lately 
been.  The  Scottish  Earl  Douglas,  who  had  been 
his  prisoner  at  Homildon,  was  now  his  ally,  having, 
together  with  his  comrades  in  misfortune,  purchased 
liberty  in  this  doubtless  congenial  fashion.  Percy 
had  left  Northumberland  with  160  followers.  His 
force  had  now  grown,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  to 
something  like  15,000  men. 

The  County  Palatine  of  Chester,  always  turbulent 
and  still  faithful  to  Richard's  memory,  was  most 
strongly  represented  in  his  ranks,  and  its  archers 
were  among  the  best  in  England.*  Numbers,  too, 
of  Glyndwr's  supporters  from  Flint  and  the  Powys 
lordships  joined  his  standard,  and  Richard's  badge 

*  It  had  been  made  a  military  Palatinate  by  William  the  Con- 
queror, with  the  special  object  of  coercing  North  Wales.  Having 
lapsed  to  the  Crown  in  Richard's  time,  that  King  had  leaned  greatly 
in  his  difficulties  on  its  warlike  and  independent  population.  The 
latter  with  its  military  efficiency  had  developed  a  corresponding 
arrogance  and  local  pride,  and  Richard  .had  been  the  last  object  of 
its  provincial  devotion. 


204  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

of  the  White  Hart  was  prominent  on  their  shields 
and  tunics.  But  Hotspur  had  assuredly  reckoned  on 
meeting  Glyndwr,  and  now  where  was  he  ?  He  had 
certainly  never  counted  on  being  stopped  by  the 
King  with  a  superior  force  upon  the  borders  of 
Wales.  He  had  now  no  choice  but  to  fight,  and 
even  Hotspur's  fiery  spirit  must  have  drooped  for  a 
moment  when  he  counted  the  odds. 

The  morning  of  the  21st  broke  and  there  was  still 
no  Glyndwr  and  no  alternative  but  battle  ;  so,  march- 
ing his  troops  to  Heytely  or  Bull  field,  a  short  three 
miles  to  the  north  of  Shrewsbury  on  the  Wem  road, 
he  drew  them  up  in  order  of  battle,  near  the  place 
where  the  church  that  was  raised  above  their  graves 
now  stands.' 

Hotspur  for  the  moment  was  depressed.  He  had 
just  discovered  that  the  hamlet  where  he  had  spent 
the  night  was  called  Berwick,  and  a  soothsayer  in  the 
North  had  foretold  that  he  should  "  fall  at  Berwick," 
meaning,  of  course,  the  famous  town  upon  the  Tweed. 
The  coincidence  affected  Percy  and  showed  that  if 
Glyndwr  was  superstitious  so  also  was  he ;  for,  turn- 
ing pale,  he  said :  "  I  perceive  my  plough  is  now 
drawing  to  its  last  furrow."  But  the  most  lion- 
hearted  soldier  in  England  soon  shook  off  such 
craven  fears  and  proceeded  to  address  his  men  in  a 
speech  which  Holinshed  has  preserved  for  us :  a  spir- 
ited and  manly  appeal  which  we  must  not  linger 
over  here.  The  King  was  curiously  slow  in  moving 
out  against  his  foes,  and  even  when,  after  noontide, 
he  had  drawn  up  his  formidable  army  in  their  front, 
he  gave  his  faithless  friends  yet  one  more  chance, 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  205 

sending  the  Abbot  of  Shrewsbury  to  offer  them  good 
terms  even  at  this  eleventh  hour,  and  it  was  certainly 
not  fear  that  prompted  the  overture.  Hotspur  was 
touched  and  inclined  to  listen,  but  his  hot-headed  or 
mistrustful  uncle  of  Worcester  overruled  him,  even 
going  himself  to  the  King's  army  and  using  lan- 
guage that  made  conciliation  impossible.  It  must 
have  been  well  into  the  afternoon  when  the  King 
threw  his  mace  into  the  air  as  a  signal  for  the  blood- 
iest battle  to  open  that  since  the  Norman  conquest 
had  dyed  the  soil  of  England. 

With  such  a  wealth  of  description  from  various 
,  authors,  more  or  less  contemporary,  it  is  not  easy  to 
^  pick  out  in  brief  the  most  salient  features  of  this 
sanguinary  fight.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that 
the  shooting  of  Percy's  Cheshire  archers  was  so  ter- 
rific at  the  opening  of  the  battle  that  the  royal  army 
was  thrown  into  confusion  and  only  saved  from  rout 
by  the  valour  and  presence  of  mind  of  the  King, 
who  rallied  his  shaken  troops  and  bore  upon  the 
smaller  forces  of  his  enemy  with  irresistible  pressure ; 
that  the  desperate  charges  of  Hotspur  and  Lord 
Douglas,  cleaving  lanes  through  their  enemy  as  they 
sought  the  King's  person,  were  the  leading  personal 
features  of  a  fight  where  all  were  brave.  The  valour 
of  the  young  Prince  Henry,  too,  seeing  how  promin- 
ent a  figure  he  is  in  our  story,  must  be  recorded, 
and  how,  though  badly  wounded  by  an  arrow  in  the 
face,  he  resisted  every  effort  to  drag  him  from  the 
field  and  still  sought  the  spot  where  the  fight  was 
fiercest  and  the  dead  thickest.  The  courage  and 
coolness  of  the  King,  too,  whose  crown  and  kingdom 


2o6  Owen  Glyndwr  [i403 

were  at  stake,  shone  brightly  in  the  deadly  melee, 
where  his  standard  was  overthrown,  its  bearer  slain, 
and  the  Constable  of  England,  Lord  Stafford,  killed 
at  his  feet.  Hotspur,  who  had  fought  like  a  lion 
with  a  score  of  knightly  opponents,  fell  at  length, 
pierced  by  a  missile  from  some  unknown  hand ;  and 
before  sunset  his  army  was  in  full  flight.  The 
slaughter  was  tremendous,  and  lasted  far  into  the 
dark  hours ;  for  it  is  curiously  significant  that  as  an 
early  moon  rose  over  that  bloody  field,  its  face  was 
quickly  hidden  by  an  eclipse  that  may  well  have  ex- 
cited the  already  strained  imaginations  of  so  super- 
stitious an  age.  About  four  thousand  men  lay  dead 
upon  the  field,  among  them  two  hundred  knights 
and  gentlemen  of  Cheshire  alone,  who  had  followed 
Percy.  The  Earl  of  Worcester  and  Lord  Douglas 
were  both  captured,  the  former  receiving  a  traitor's 
death.  The  corpse  of  the  gallant  Hotspur,  after 
being  buried  by  a  kinsman,  was  dug  up  again  and 
placed  standing  upright  between  two  millstones  in 
Shrewsbury  market-place,  that  all  men  might  know 
that  the  fierce  Northumberland  whelp,  the  friend  of 
Glyndwr,  was  dead.  His  quarters  were  then  sent, 
after  the  manner  of  the  time,  to  decorate  the  walls 
of  the  chief  English  cities,  the  honour  of  exhibiting 
his  head  over  the  gates  being  reserved  for  York. 

The  more  illustrious  dead  were  buried  in  the 
graveyards  of  Shrewsbury.  The  rest  were,  for  the 
Under  most  part,   huddled   into  great   pits    ad- 

Henry's  joining  the  spot  where  the  old  church,  that 
patronage.  ^^^  raiscd  Under  Henry's  patronage  as  a 
shrine  wherein  masses  might  be  said  for  their  souls. 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  207 

still  lifts  its  grey  tower  amid  the  quiet  Shropshire 
fields.* 

And  all  this  time  Glyndwr,  in  far  Carmarthen,  was 
in  total  ignorance  of  what  a  chance  he  had  missed, 
and  what  a  calamity  had  occurred.  If  Hotspur  had 
been  better  served  in  his  communications,  or  fate  in 
this  respect  had  been  kinder,  and  Glyndwr  with 
10,000  men  had  stood  by  the  Percys*  side,  how  dif- 
ferently might  the  course  of  English  history  have 
run !  It  is  fortunate  for  England,  beyond  a  doubt, 
that  Hotspur  fell  at  Shrewsbury  and  that  Glyndwr 
was  not  there,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  after 
reputation,  one  cannot  resist  the  feeling  that  a  great 
triumph  upon  the  open  plains  of  Shropshire,  in  an 
historic  fight,would  have  set  that  seal  upon  Glyndwr's 
renown  which  some  perhaps  may  think  is  wanting. 
Reckless  deeds  of  daring  and  aggression  are  more 
picturesque  attributes  for  a  popular  hero.  But 
Glyndwr's  fame  lies  chiefly  in  the  patience  of  his 
strategy,  his  self-command,  his  influence  over  his 
people,  his  tireless  energy,  his  strength  of  will,  and 
dogged  persistence.  He  had  to  do  a  vast  deal  with 
small  means :  to  unite  a  country  honeycombed  with 


*  Battle-field  Church,  which  now  serves  a  small  parish,  is  probably 
the  only  instance  in  England  of  a  church  erected  over  the  burial-pits 
of  a  battle  for  the  purpose  of  saying  masses  for  the  victims  of  a  great 
slaughter,  and  that  now  does  duty  as  a  parish  church.  The  fabric 
has  had  periods  of  dilapidation  and  been  much  restored,  but  a  good 
part  of  the  walls  is  original.  There  was  a  college  originally  at- 
tached to  it,  but  all  trace  of  this  has  disappeared.  My  first  visit  to 
the  battle-field  was  in  company  with  the  Rev.  Dymock  Fletcher, 
well  known  as  a  Shropshire  antiquary,  who  has  published  an  interest- 
ing pamphlet  on  this  subject. 


2o8  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403 

alien  interests,  to  fight  enemies  at  home  and  beyond 
the  mountain  borders  of  his  small  fatherland,  and  to 
struggle  with  a  nation  that  within  man's  memory 
had  laid  France  prostrate  at  its  feet.  Private  ad- 
ventures and  risky  experiments  he  could  not  afford. 
A  great  deal  of  statecraft  fell  to  his  share.  His 
efforts  for  Welsh  independence  could  not  ultimately 
succeed  without  allies,  and  while  he  was  stimulating 
the  irregular  military  resources  of  the  Principality, 
and  making  things  safe  there  with  no  gentle  hand, 
his  mind  was  of  necessity  much  occupied  with  the 
men  and  events  that  might  aid  him  in  the  three 
kingdoms  and  across  the  seas.  His  individual  prowess 
would  depend  almost  wholly  on  tradition  and  the 
odes  of  his  laureate,  lolo  Goch,  if  it  were  not  for  his 
feat  against  the  Flemings  when  surrounded  by  them 
on  the  Plinlimmon  Mountains : 

"  Surrounded  by  the  numerous  foe. 
Well  didst  thou  deal  the  unequal  blow, 
How  terrible  thy  ashen  spear. 
Which  shook  the  bravest  heart  with  fear. 
More  horrid  than  the  lightning's  glance. 
Flashed  the  red  meteors  from  thy  lance, 
The  harbinger  of  death." 

But  Glyndwr's  renown,  with  all  its  blemishes,  rests 
on  something  more  than  sword-cuts  and  lance- 
thrusts.  He  had  been  three  years  in  the  field,  and 
for  two  of  them  paramount  in  Wales.  Now,  how- 
ever, with  the  rout  and  slaughter  of  Shrewsbury,  and 
the  immense  increase  of  strength  it  gave  to  Henry,  a 
crushing  blow  had  surely  been  struck  at  the  Welsh 
chieftain  and  his  cause.     Numbers  of  Owen's  people 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  209 

in  Flint  and  the  adjoining  lordships,  cowed  by  the 
slaughter  of  half  the  gentry  of  sympathetic  Cheshire, 
and  their  own  losses,  came  in  for  the  pardon  that 
was  freely  offered.     The  King  had  a  large  army,  too, 
on  the  Welsh  border,  and  the  moment  would  seem 
a  singularly  propitious  one  for  bringing  all  Wales  to 
his  feet,  while  the  effect  of  his  tremendous  victory 
was  yet  simmering  in  men's  minds.     But  Henry  was 
too  furious  with  the  Percys  for  cool  deliberation. 
The  old  Earl  had  not  been  absent  from  the  field  of 
Shrewsbury  from  disinclination,  but  from   illness; 
^    and  he  was  now  in  the  North  stirring  up  revolt  upon 
(^    all  sides.     But  the  ever  active  King,  speeding  north- 
\    ward,  checkmated  him  at  York  in  such  a  way  that 
\   there  was  no  option  for  the  recusant  nobleman  but 
to  throw  himself  at  his  injured  prince's  feet  and  crave 
forgiveness.      It  is  to  Henry's  credit  that  he  par- 
doned his  ancient  friend.     Perhaps  he  thought  the 
blood  of  two  Percys  was  sufficient  for  one  occasion  ; 
so  the  old  Earl  rode  out  of  York  by  the  King's  side, 
Mnder  the  festering  head  of  his  gallant  son,  on  whom 
he  had  been  mean  enough  to  throw  the  onus  of  his 
,  own  faithlessness,  and  was  placed  for  a  time  out  of 
J   mischief  at  Coventry. 

By  the  time,  however,  that  Henry  came  south  again 
the  battle  of  Shrewsbury,  so  far  as  Wales  was  con- 
cerned, might  never  have  been  fought.  Glyndwr's 
confidence  in  the  South  was  so  great  that  he  had 
himself  gone  north  to  steady  the  men  of  Flint  and 
the  borders  in  their  temporary  panic.  His  mission 
seems  to  have  been  so  effective  that  by  the  time  the 
King  was  back  it  was  the  town  of  Chester  and  the 


2IO  Owen  Glyndwr  [i403 

neighbouring  castles  that  were  the  victims  of  a  panic. 
An  edict  issued  by  Prince  Henry,  who  lay  recovering 
from  his  wound  at  Shrewsbury,  ordered  the  expul- 
sion of  every  Welshman  from  the  border  towns,  the 
penalty  for  return  being  death.  Strenuous  efforts 
were  again  made  to  stop  all  trade  between  England 
and  Wales,  but  it  was  useless ;  a  continuous  traffic 
in  arms  and  provisions  went  steadily  on,  the  goods 
being  exchanged  for  cattle  and  booty  of  all  kinds  in 
which  Owen's  mountain  strongholds  now  abounded. 
On  the  Welsh  side  of  Chester,  hedges  and  ditches 
were  hastily  formed  as  a  protection  against  invasion, 
and  watchers  were  kept  stationed  night  and  day 
along  the  shores  of  the  Dee  estuary. 

It  was  the  8th  of  September  when  Henry  arrived 
from  the  north  and  prepared  at  Worcester  for  his 
long-deferred  expedition  against  Glyndwr.  He  first 
issued  formal  orders  to  the  Marcher  barons  to  keep 
their  castles  in  readiness  against  assault  and  in 
good  repair  ! — a  superfluous  warning  one  would  have 
thought,  and  not  devoid  of  irony,  when  addressed 
to  men  who  for  a  year  or  two  had  just  managed  to 
maintain  a  precarious  existence  against  the  waters 
of  rebellion  that  surged  all  round  them.  Henry 
was  at  his  very  wits'  end  for  money,  and  all  those  in 
his  interest  were  feeling  the  pinch  of  poverty.  It  so 
happened  that  at  this  juncture  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  was  attending  the  Court  at  Worcester, 
and  the  sight  of  his  magnificent  retinue  aroused 
dangerous  thoughts  in  the  minds  of  the  barons 
around  the  King,  who  had  spent  so  much  blood  and 
treasure  in  his  service  and  were  now  sorely  pinched 


1403]  The  Battle  of  Shrewsbury  2 1 1 

for  want  of  means.  The  same  ideas  occurred  to 
Henry,  if  indeed  they  were  not  suggested  to  him, 
and  in  no  uncertain  voice  he  called  upon  the  Church 
for  pecuniary  aid  against  Glyndwr.  The  Archbishop 
took  in  the  situation  and  sniffed  spoliation  in  the  air. 
At  the  bare  idea  of  such  intentions  he  grew  desper- 
ate, and  with  amazing  courage  bearded  the  King 
himself,  swearing  that  the  first  man  who  laid  a  finger 
on  church  property  should  find  his  life  no  longer 
worth  living  and  his  soul  for  ever  damned.  The 
King  was  forced  to  soothe  the  excited  cleric,  who  in 
later  and  calmer  moments  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  would  be  perhaps  prudent  for  the  Church  to 
offer  some  pecuniary  assistance  to  the  Crown.  This 
was  ultimately  done,  and  the  sum  contributed  was 
about  enough  to  pay  the  expenses  of  one  of  the 
forty  or  fifty  castles  that  were  gradually  falling  into 
Owen's  hands. 

In  the  meantime,  Glyndwr  had  invaded  Hereford- 
shire, penetrating  as  far  as  Leominster,  and  had 
compelled  that  county  to  make  special  terms  with 
him  and  pay  heavily  for  them  too.  The  King,  how- 
ever, had  now  everything  in  train  for  a  general  ad- 
vance through  South  Wales.  What  he  did  there 
and  what  he  left  undone  must  be  reserved  for 
another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VII 

OWEN  AND    THE   FRENCH 
I403-I404 

KING  Henry's  fourth  expedition  against 
Glyndwr,  in  spite  of  all  the  talk,  the  pre- 
parations, the  hard-wrung  money  grants,  the 
prayers  and  supplications  for  aid,  will  make  but 
scant  demands  upon  our  space.  He  spent  some 
days  at  Hereford,  issuing  orders  for  stores  to  be  for- 
warded to  the  hard-pressed  castles  of  South  Wales 
from  the  port  of  Bristol,  though  it  is  obvious  that 
only  some  of  them  could  be  relieved  by  sea.  The 
names  of  a  few  of  these  may  interest  Welshmen. 
They  were  Llandovery,  Crickhoell,  Tretower,  Aber- 
gavenny, Caerleon,  Goodrich,  Ewyas,  Harold,  Usk, 
Caerphilly,  Ewyas,  Lacy,  Paines,  Brampton  Bryan, 
Lyonshall,  Dorston,  Manorbier,  Stapleton,  Kidwelly, 
Lampeter,  Brecon,  Cardiff,  Newport,  Milford,  Haver- 
ford-west,  Pembroke,  and  Tenby. 

The  King  left  Hereford  about  the  15th  of  Sep- 
tember and  he  was  seated  a  few  days  later  among 
the  ruins  of  Carmarthen,  the  very  centre  of  the 
recent   wars   and    devastations.     Glyndwr  and   his 

212 


[1403-1404]       Owen  and  the  French  213 

people  were,  of  course,  nowhere  to  be  seen,  nor  did 
the  King  show  any  disposition  to  hunt  for  them. 
He  remained  about  two  days  at  Carmarthen,  and 
contented  himself  with  issuing  all  kinds  of  orders, 
proclamations,  pardons,  and  confiscations,  which 
were  for  the  most  so  much  waste  paper.  Leaving 
behind  him  the  Earl  of  Somerset  with  an  inefficient 
garrison  and  no  money  to  pay  them,  he  then  faced 
about,  and  made  the  best  of  his  way  back  again, 
arriving  at  Hereford  within  four  days.  When  one 
recalls  Edward  the  First,  who  considered  nearly  three 
years  of  personal  residence  none  too  short  a  time  in 
which  to  establish  order  in  Wales,  which  was  at  that 
time  by  no  means  so  wholly  hostile  as  now,  the  fee- 
bleness of  Henry's  Welsh  policy  strikes  one  with 
singular  force.  Had  he  been  his  cousin  Richard  or 
an  Edward  the  Second,  a  man  sluggish  in  war  and  a 
slave  to  luxury,  the  explanation  would  be  simple 
enough ;  but  though  his  Court  was  extravagant, 
almost  culpably  so,  the  King  himself  was  an  ener- 
getic, serious-minded  soldier,  and  a  man  of  affairs 
rather  than  of  pleasure.  One  might  well  have 
supposed,  after  the  decisive  victory  at  Shrewsbury, 
and  the  firm  grip  on  the  throne  which  the  destruction 
of  his  domestic  enemies  gave  to  the  King,  that 
Glyndwr's  hour  had  at  last  come. 

It  is  almost  wearisome  to  tell  the  same  old  tale  of 
"scuttle,"  the  same  trumpeting  forth  of  orders  to 
captains  and  governors  of  castles  and  Marcher 
barons  to  do,  with  scant  men  and  means,  what  their 
master  had  so  conspicuously  flinched  from  with  the 
power  of  England,  such  as  he  had  made  it,  at  his 


214  Owen  Glyndwr  ti403- 

command.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  King's 
homeward  tracks  through  Wales  were  obliterated, 
when  his  back  was  turned,  Hke  those  upon  sand,  be- 
fore the  returning  tide  of  Owen  and  his  Welshmen, 
who  had  swept  through  Glamorgan  and  were  press- 
ing Cardiff,  even  while  Henry  was  still  travelling 
homewards.  He  had  hardly  reached  London  before 
he  received  piteous  letters  from  the  chiefs  of  the  gar- 
rison that  had  been  left  at  Carmarthen,  begging  him 
to  send  the  Duke  of  York  there  with  strong  rein- 
forcements or  they  were  lost  men,  and  protesting 
that  in  no  case  could  they  stay  there  a  day  longer 
than  the  stipulated  month,  for  their  men  would  not 
stand  by  them. 

Glyndwr  had  received  some  sort  of  consolation 
from  the  French  for  the  blow  struck  at  his  English 
allies  on  the  plains  of  Shrewsbury.  Their  corsairs 
had  been  harrying  the  shores  of  England  throughout 
the  summer.  Plymouth,  Salcombe,  and  other  places 
had  been  raided,  while  flotillas  were  even  now  hover- 
ing round  the  coast  of  Wales,  in  the  interests  of 
Owen.  Herefordshire,  which  had  received  the  long- 
looked-for  King  with  such  unbounded  joy  in  Sep- 
tember, and  hailed  him  as  its  deliverer,  was,  in 
October,  in  as  bad  a  plight  as  ever,  for  Glyndwr's 
men  had  again  poured  over  the  borders.  And 
though  the  King  with  his  thousands  had  come  and 
gone  like  a  dream,  the  people  of  Hereford  and 
Gloucester  were  now  glad  enough  to  welcome  the 
Duke  of  York  with  nine  hundred  spearmen  and 
archers.  The  Courtenays  with  a  force  of  Devon- 
shire men  had  been  ordered  across  the  Severn  sea 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  2 1 5 

to  relieve  Cardiff,  but  this  they  failed  in  doing,  as 
now  not  only  that  fortress,  but  Caerphilly,  Newport, 
Caerleon,  and  Usk  fell  into  Owen's  hands. 

The  number  of  men  that  Glyndwr  had  with  him 
at  various  times  is  difficult  to  estimate.  Now  and 
then  contemporary  writers  quote  the  figures.  In 
South  Wales  lately  it  will  be  remembered  he  had 
nearly  ten  thousand.  In  Carmarthen  at  another 
time  the  number  from  an  equally  credible  source 
is  estimated  at  thirty  thousand.  His  spearmen  were 
better  than  his  archers.  The  Welsh  archers,  till  the 
Union  and  the  wars  with  France,  had  used  short 
bows  made  generally  of  twisted  twigs  and  formidable 
only  at  a  close  range.  Archery,  however,  in  its 
highly  developed  state  must  have  become  familiar  by 
this  time,  through  the  co-operation  of  the  Welsh  in 
the  French  wars.  The  Welsh  spears  were  excep- 
tionally long,  and  the  men  of  Merioneth  had  a  special 
reputation  for  making  efficient  use  of  them.  They 
were  all,  however,  eminently  light  troops,  though 
equipped  with  steel  caps,  breastplates,  and  often  with 
greaves.  "  In  the  first  attack,"  says  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  *'the  Welsh  are  more  than  men,  in  the 
second  less  than  women,"  and  he  knew  them  well. 
But  their  want  of  staunchness  under  repulse,  he 
takes  care  to  tell  us,  was  temporary.  They  were  a 
people  well-nigh  impossible  to  conquer,  he  declares, 
from  the  rapidity  with  which  they  recovered  from 
defeat  and  the  tenacity  with  which  they  returned, 
not  always  immediately,  but  sooner  or  later,  to  the 
attack,  refusing  to  acknowledge  ultimate  defeat, 
and  desperately  attached  to  liberty.     Glyndwr  had 


2i6  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

practically  no  cavalry.  Horses  were  very  widely  in 
use,  perhaps  ponies  still  more  so,  amid  the  mediaeval 
Welsh,  and  their  gentry  and  nobility  went  mounted 
to  war  from  the  earliest  times.  But  it  is  likely  that 
in  Wales  itself,  at  any  rate,  all  ranks  did  their  actual 
fighting  on  foot. 

Of  the  disposition  of  Glyndwr's  forces  and  their 
personnel  beyond  a  few  of  his  captains  we  know  little. 
It  seems  almost  certain  that  the  men  of  the  South 
for  the  most  part  fought  in  the  south,  and  those  of 
the  North  in  the  north.  If  he  had  a  nucleus  of  sol- 
diers that  followed  him  in  his  rapid  movements  from 
one  end  of  the  Principality  to  the  other  it  was  a 
comparatively  small  one.  In  every  district  he  had 
trusted  leaders  who  looked  after  his  interests,  and  on 
his  appearance,  or  at  his  summons,  rallied  their  fol- 
lowers to  battle,  and  upon  their  own  account  made 
the  lives  of  the  beleaguered  Saxons  in  their  midst 
intolerable.  By  this  time,  however,  and  indeed  be- 
fore it,  every  man  who  was  not  a  professed  subject 
of  the  descendant  of  Llewelyn  and  of  Madoc  ap 
Griffith,  had  fled  Wales,  except  those  who  were 
swelling  the  population  of  the  ill-victualled  and 
closely  beleaguered  castles.  Glyndwr  had  before 
him  many  a  doughty  Anglo-Norman  warrior,  under 
walls  well-nigh  impervious  to  anything  but  starva- 
tion, whose  crumbling  shells  on  many  a  Welsh  head- 
land and  hilltop  still  wake  memories  of  the  past  and 
stir  our  fancy. 

Lord  Audley  was  at  Llandovery,  Sir  Henry  Scrope 
at  Langhame,  John  Pauncefote  held  Crickhowl,  and 
James  Berkeley,  Tretower.     At  Abergavenny  was  a 


H041  Owen  and  the  French  2 1 7 

Beauchamp,  at  Goodrich  a  Neville.  The  splendid 
pile  of  Caerphilly,  whose  ruins  are  the  largest  in 
Britain,  was  in  the  charge  of  a  Chatelaine,  Lady  Des- 
penser.  The  noble  castle  of  Manorbier,  where  Gir- 
aldus  was  born,  in  that  of  Sir  John  Cornwall,  while 
the  Earl  of  Warwick  was  at  Paines,  and  a  Charlton, 
of  course,  at  Welshpool. 

About  the  same  time,  some  French  companies 
were  landing  in  Carmarthen  to  add  further  to  the 
woes  of  Henry  in  Wales ;  and  for  the  comfort  of 
Glyndwr.  The  King  himself  was  entering  London, 
and  to  show  how  little  the  people  of  one  end  of  the 
country  sometimes  realised  what  was  actually  hap- 
pening at  the  other,  the  citizens,  who  were  always 
his  particular  friends,  gave  him  quite  an  enthusi- 
astic reception.  It  should,  however,  be  remembered 
that  the  Londoners  had  been  in  great  force  at 
Shrewsbury,  and  the  triumphs  of  that  bloody  fight 
were  still  ringing  in  men's  ears. 

It  was  not  till  two  years  after  this  that  the  great 
French  effort  was  made  on  Owen's  behalf,  of  which  we 
shall  hear  in  due  course,  but  even  now  a  few  hundred 
Bretons,  as  already  related,  had  found  their  way  to 
Wales.  They  flinched  from  the  great  Pembroke 
castles  and,  adventuring  upon  their  own  account, 
crept  round  the  coast  of  Lleyn  and  made  an  attempt 
upon  Carnarvon.  A  very  short  stay  before  that 
matchless  pile  of  Norman  defensive  art  sufficed 
upon  this  occasion  for  the  invaders,  though  soon 
afterwards  they  landed  and  joined  Glyndwr  in  its 
investment.  The  island  of  Anglesey  in  the  mean- 
time, cut  off  from  the  rest  of  Wales  by  the  castles 


21 8  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

and  "  English  towns  "  of  Conway  and  Carnarvon,  and 
its  own  almost  equally  formidable  stronghold  of 
Beaumaris,  had  for  the  moment  given  in  to  English 
reinforcements  from  Chester,  and  accepted  the  freely 
offered  pardon  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  It  is  a  sin- 
gular fact  that,  while  so  many  of  Glyndwr's  soldiers, 
headed  by  the  Tudors,  came  from  Anglesey  and  near 
the  close  of  his  wars  2000  of  its  inhabitants  were 
actually  in  arms,  no  battle  or  even  skirmish  took 
place  there,  so  far  as  we  know,  during  the  whole 
period  of  these  operations. 

But  Carnarvon,  now  at  this  date,  January,  1404, 
was  as  a  matter  of  fact  in  a  lamentable  condition  as 
regards  defenders.  The  garrison  had  decHned  to  less 
than  thirty  men,  and  there  are  letters  in  Sir  Henry 
EUis's  collection  showing  the  desperate  state  to  which 
this  and  other  castles  were  reduced.  It  seems  at  the 
first  sight  incredible  that  such  a  handful  of  men  could 
hold  so  great  a  fortress  against  serious  attacks.  The 
walls  and  defences  of  Carnarvon  Castle  are  to-day 
much  what  they  were  in  the  times  of  Glyndwr.  It 
is  perhaps  almost  necessary  to  walk  upon  its  giddy 
parapets,  to  climb  its  lofty  towers,  in  order  to  grasp 
the  hopelessly  defiant  front  such  a  fortress  must 
have  shown  to  those  below  it  before  the  time  of  ef- 
fective artillery :  the  deep  moat  upon  the  town  side, 
the  waters  of  the  harbour  a  hundred  feet  below  the 
frowning  battlements  upon  the  other,  the  huge  gate- 
way from  which  the  portcullis  grinned  and  the  up- 
raised drawbridge  swung.  Twenty-eight  men  only 
were  inside  when  Owen  with  a  force  of  his  own 
people  and  the  French  threw  themselves  against  it. 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  2 1 9 

The  besiegers  had  engines,  "scowes,"  and  scaling 
ladders,  but  the  handful  of  defenders  were  sufilicient, 
for  the  time  being  at  any  rate,  to  hurry  from  point 
to  point,  and  frustrate  all  attempts  to  surmount  the 
lofty  walls,  though  these  attempts,  no  doubt,  were 
made  at  many  points  simultaneously.  The  Con- 
stable John  Bolde  was  away,  but  one  Parry,  his 
deputy,  was  in  command.  It  was  urgent  that  a  mes- 
sage should  be  sent  to  Chester,  acquainting  Venables, 
the  governor,  of  their  desperate  situation.  Not  a 
man,  as  may  well  be  believed,  could  be  spared,  so  a 
woman  was  despatched  to  take  the  news  by  word  of 
mouth,  for  few  dared  in  those  days  to  carry  letters. 

Harlech  was  in  an  equally  bad  plight,  its  defenders 
being  reduced  to  twenty-six,  but  it  was  as  impreg- 
nable as  Carnarvon,  and  much  smaller.  The  garri- 
son had  been  so  mistrustful  of  their  governor's  fidel- 
ity that  they  had  locked  him  up.  During  January 
their  numbers  were  reduced  to  sixteen,  but  they 
still  held  manfully  out  against  the  Welsh  under 
Howel  Vychan.  They  eventually  succeeded  in  send- 
ing word  across  the  bay  to  Criccieth,  and  to  Con- 
way also,  of  their  condition.  Conway  had  been 
urgently  petitioning  the  King  and  assuring  him  that 
400  more  men  would  suffice  to  hold  the  castles  till 
the  spring,  but  that  then  "  when  the  rebels  can  lie  out 
which  they  cannot  now  do  "  a  far  greater  number 
would  be  required  ;  but  the  King  either  could  not  or 
would  not  understand.  Harlech,  grim  and  grey  on 
its  incomparable  rocky  perch,  required  fewer  de- 
fenders even  than  the  rest.  The  sea  then  swept  over 
the  half-mile  strip  of  land,  the  '*  Morfa  Harlech," 


2  20  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

that  now  lies  dry  beneath  it,  and  lapped  the 
base  of  the  lofty  rock  on  whose  summit  the  great 
Edward's  remotest  castle  still  stands  defiant  of  the 
ages."^ 

Henry  had  issued  orders  that  these  seagirt  castles 
should  be  looked  to  by  his  navy.  But  Henry's  ad- 
mirals seem  to  have  had  as  little  liking  for  Welsh 
seas  as  the  King  himself  had  for  Welsh  mountains, 
though  happily  some  Bristol  sailors  appear  to  have 
done  their  best  to  supply  the  deficiency.  Glyndwr, 
however,  was  determined  to  have  Harlech  without 
loss  of  further  time.  Coming  there  from  Carnarvon 
he  parleyed  with  the  garrison,  and  offered  terms 
which  all  but  seven  accepted.  What  became  of  this 
uncompromising  minority  it  would  be  hard  to  say, 
but  at  any  rate  Owen  entered  into  possession  and 
there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  he  planted  his 
family  here  and  made  his  headquarters  upon  the 
historic  rock  where  Bran  the  Blessed  and  a  long  line 
of  less  shadowy  Welsh  chieftains  had  dwelt,  ages 
before  the  rearing  of  these  Norman  towers. 

Later  on  we  hear  of  his  summoning  a  parliament  to 
Harlech,  but  during  this  year  the  first  of  these  legis- 
lative assemblies  that  he  called  together  met  at 
Machynlleth,  as  being  unquestionably  a  more  con- 
venient rendezvous  for  Welshmen  in  general.  Hither 
came  '*  four  persons  of  sufficient  consequence  "  out  of 
each  "  Cantref  "  (the  old  unit  of  division  in  Wales),  to 
take  counsel  for  future  action  and  to  gather  around 

*  That  ships  could  reach  the  gate  at  the  foot  of  the  rock  of  Harlech 
is  undoubted.  What  course  the  water  took  or  how  much  of  the 
Morfa  was  actually  under  water  is  a  matter  of  uncertainty. 


14041 


Owen  and  the  French  221 


the  throne,  upon  which  they  had  now  seated  a 
crowned  Prince  of  their  own  race.  One  of  the 
Welsh  gentlemen,  however,  who  attended  this  his- 
toric parliament,  came  with  very  different  intentions, 
and  this  was  David  ap  Llewelyn  ap  Howel,  other- 
wise known  as  Davy  Gam,  or  "  squint-eyed  Davy,"  a 
landowner  near  Brecon  and  the  scion  of  a  family 
distinguished  both  then  and  for  long  afterwards, 
his  great-grandfather  having  fought  at  Crecy  and 
Poitiers.  He  himself  was  a  short,  long-armed  man 
with  red  hair  and  a  cast  in  his  eye.  In  youth  he  had 
been  compelled  to  fly  from  Brecon  for  killing  a 
neighbour,  and  indeed  he  seemed  to  have  enjoyed 
all  his  life  a  somewhat  sinister  reputation  for  reck- 
lessness and  daring.  Flying  to  England  he  was  re- 
ceived into  the  household  of  John  of  Gaunt,  where 
he  grew  up  side  by  side  with  Henry  of  Bolingbroke 
and  was  entirely  devoted  to  his  service.  Henry, 
when  he  came  into  power,  had  restored  Gam  to  his 
property  and  position  in  Brecon,  and  moreover  be- 
stowed upon  him  Crown  appointments  in  South 
Wales.  Glyndwr  had  a  brother-in-law  named  Gam, 
which  has  given  rise  to  some  confusion,  but  Davy 
was  at  any  rate  no  relation  to  the  Welsh  chieftain, 
though,  both  having  been  in  Henry's  household,  it  is 
probable  they  knew  each  other  well. 

Gam  had  hitherto  and  naturally  been  a  staunch 
King's  man;  he  now,  however,  feigned  conversion  and 
attended  the  parliament  at  Machynlleth,  not  to  do 
homage  to  Owen,  but  to  kill  him.  The  almost  cer- 
tain death  to  which  he  exposed  himself  in  case  of 
success  prompts  one  to  something  like  admiration 


22  2  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

for  so  single-minded  and  fearless  an  avenger.  But 
his  intentions  were  by  some  means  discovered  and 
his  rash  project  nipped  in  the  bud.  He  was  seized 
and  doomed  to  the  cruel  fate  which  the  nature  of 
his  crime  made  inevitable.  Old  friends  and  relatives, 
however,  were  in  strength  at  Machynlleth  and  suc- 
cessfully interceded  for  his  life.  Perhaps  Glyndwr 
was  induced  to  this  act  of  clemency  by  the  reflection 
that  imprisonment  for  an  indefinite  period,  as  prac- 
tised by  himself  and  others  at  that  time,  was  a  worse 
punishment  than  torture  and  death  to  a  man  of 
spirit.  Whether  the  captive  lay  in  the  dungeons  of 
Dolbadarn  under  Snowdon,  at  Harlech,  or  in  the  still 
surviving  prison  house  (Cachardy  Owen)  at  Llan- 
santffraid-Glyndyfrdwy,  we  do  not  hear.  He  prob- 
ably tasted  the  sweets  of  all  of  them  and  must  indeed 
have  spent  a  miserable  time  in  those  later  years  when 
Owen  was  himself  at  bay  in  the  mountains  and  more 
or  less  of  a  fugitive. 

But  Davy  was  freed  eventually,  though  only  just 
before  the  final  disappearance  of  Glyndwr,  and  lived 
to  fight  at  the  King's  side  at  Agincourt  together 
with  his  son-in-law  Roger  Vychan,  where  both  fell 
gloriously  on  that  memorable  day.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  knighted  on  the  field  while  dying  and  to 
be  moreover  the  original  of  Shakespeare's  Fluellin, 
and  to  have  made  the  memorable  reply  to  Henry  V. 
when  returning  from  a  survey  of  the  vast  French 
hosts  just  before  the  battle  :  "  There  are  enough  to 
kill,  enough  to  take  prisoners,  and  enough  to  run 
away." 

When  next  Glynwdr  went  campaigning  through 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  223 

Brecon  he  took  the  opportunity  of  burning  his 
would-be  murderer's  mansion  of  Cyrnwigen.  A 
well-known  tradition  relates  how,  while  the  flames 
were  leaping  high  around  the  devoted  homestead, 
Owen  addressed  David  Gam's  bailiff  who  was  gazing 
disconsolately  at  the  scene,  in  an  englyn,  which  by 
some  means  has  found  its  way  down  to  posterity 
and  is  well  known  in  Wales.  Seeing  that  it  is  the 
only  instance  we  have  of  so  great  a  patron  of  bards 
breaking  out  himself  into  verse,  I  venture  to  print 
it  here.  There  have  been  various  translations  ;  this 
is  one  of  them  : 

"  Canst  thou  a  little  red  man  descry. 

Looking  around  for  his  dwelling  fair  ? 
Tell  him  it  under  the  bank  doth  lie, 

And  its  brow  the  mark  of  a  coal  doth  bear." 

No  special  effort  was  made  this  spring  from 
England  to  break  Glyndwr's  power  or  to  relieve  the 
castles.  While  some  of  Owen's  captains  were  hover- 
ing on  the  Marches,  the  chief  himself,  having  dis- 
missed his  parliament,  moved  with  his  principal 
councillors  to  Dolgelly.  Tradition  still  points  out 
the  house  at  Machynlleth  where  gathered  the  first 
and  almost  the  only  approach  to  a  parliament  that 
ever  met  in  Wales.  It  stands  nearly  opposite  the 
gates  of  Plas  Machynlleth,  an  unnoticeable  portion 
of  the  street  in  fact,  a  long  low  building  now  in  part 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  private  residence,  and 
having  nothing  suggestive  about  it  but  the  thickness 
of  its  walls.  The  chief  outcome  of  this  conference 
at  Dolgelly  of   **  sufficient  persons "    from  all  over 


224  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

Wales,  was  a  much  more  formal  and  serious  over- 
ture to  the  French  King  than  the  letters  of  1402. 
Glyndwr  had  now  fully  donned  the  mantle  of 
royalty  and  wrote  to  the  King  of  France  as  a 
brother  and  an  equal,  proposing  to  make  an  offen- 
sive and  defensive  alliance  with  him. 

The  ambassadors  chosen  for  the  conduct  of  this 
important  business  were  Griffith  Yonge,  doctor  of 
laws,  Owen's  Chancellor,  and  his  own  brother-in-law, 
John  Hanmer.  The  instrument  is  in  Latin,  '*  Dated 
at  Dolgelly  on  the  loth  day  of  May  1404  and  in  the 
fourth  year  of  our  principality,"  and  begins :  "  Owen 
by  the  grace  of  God,  Prince  of  Wales,"  etc.  The 
two  Welsh  plenipotentiaries  crossed  the  sea  without 
misadventure  and  were  received  in  a  most  friendly 
manner  at  Paris  by  the  French  King.  His  repre- 
sentative, the  Count  de  la  Marche,  signed  the  treaty 
upon  July  14th,  together  with  Hanmer  and  Yonge, 
at  the  house  of  Ferdinand  de  Corby,  Chancellor  of 
France,  several  bishops  and  other  notabilities  being 
present.  By  this  intrument  Glyndwr  and  the  French 
King  entered  into  a  solemn  league  and  covenant  to 
assist  each  other  against  all  the  attacks  of  Henry  of 
Lancaster  (Charles  had  never  yet  recognised  him  as 
King)  and  his  allies.  The  Welshmen  signed  the 
document  on  behalf  of  ''our  illustrious  and  most 
dread  Lord,  Owen,  Prince  of  Wales."  The  treaty 
was  ratified  on  the  12th  of  January  following  at 
Llanbadarn  near  Aberystwith.  The  seal  which 
Glyndwr  now  used  in  all  his  transactions  represents 
the  hero  himself,  with  a  biforked  beard,  seated  on  a 
chair,  holding  a   sceptre  in   his  right  hand   and    a 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  225 

globe  in  his  left,  and  has  recently  been  adopted  as 
the  corporate  arms  of  Machynlleth.  Nor  should  it 
be  overlooked  that  Owen  sent  a  list  of  all  the  chief 
harbours  and  roads  of  Wales  to  Charles,  while  the 
latter  in  return  loaded  the  Welsh  ambassadors  with 
presents  for  their  master,  including  a  gilded  helmet, 
a  cuirass,  and  sword,  as  an  earnest  of  his  promised 
help. 

About  the  same  time  as  the  departure  of  Owen's 
mission  to  France,  he  wrote  another  letter,  which  is 
extant.  It  is  not  of  much  importance,  except  as  an 
illustration  of  the  confidence  he  felt  at  this  time  in 
his  ultimate  success.  It  is  addressed  to  ''our  dear 
and  entirely  well  beloved  Henry  Don,"  urging  his 
co-operation,  and  concluding  with  the  remark:  "Their 
sway  is  ending  and  victory  coming  to  us,  as  from 
the  first,  none  could  doubt  God  had  so  ordered." 

Among  other  signs  of  Glyndwr's  increased  impor- 
tance this  year,  was  the  coming  over  to  his  cause  of 
that  Tudor  Trevor,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  who  it  will 
be  remembered  had  warned  the  King  and  his  coun- 
cil against  despising  Owen's  peaceful  appeal  for 
justice  against  Grey  of  Ruthin,  and  urgently  pro- 
tested against  those  ill-fated  and  misplaced  sneers  at 
the  **  barfoots." 

It  was  Trevor's  cathedral  at  St.  Asaph,  of  course, 
and  its  precincts,  which  Glyndwr  had  so  ruthlessly 
burned  in  1402.  The  Bishop  had  since  then  been 
not  only  supported  by  grants  from  the  English 
exchequer,  but  had  well  earned  them  by  much 
serious  official  work  in  the  King's  service.  Whether 
his  Welsh  blood    warmed    at    the   prospects   of   a 


2  26  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

revived  Cambrian  independence  or  whether  ambi- 
tion was  the  keynote  of  his  actions,  no  one  may- 
know.  At  any  rate  it  was  not  want  or  neglect  at 
the  hands  of  the  King  that  drove  him  back  into  the 
arms  of  Owen.  The  latter  gave  him  a  cordial  wel- 
come, and  it  must  be  said  for  Trevor  that  through 
good  and  ill  he  proved  faithful  to  his  new  master's 
cause.  Militant  clerics  were  common  enough  in 
those  times.  Trevor,  with  the  martial  instincts  of 
the  great  border  race  from  which  he  sprang,  and 
whose  history  is  written  deep  for  centuries  beside 
the  Ceiriog  and  the  Dee,  had  been  in  the  thick  of 
the  fight  at  Shrewsbury  beneath  the  King's  banner. 
He  now  followed  Glyndwr  both  in  the  council  and 
in  the  field,  dying  eventually  in  Paris,  a  fugitive  and 
an  exile,  in  the  year  1410. 

All  through  this  spring  Owen's  followers  on  the 
borders  were  making  life  upon  the  English  side  in- 
tolerable. Bonfires  were  laid  ready  for  the  match 
on  every  hill.  The  thirty  towers  and  castles  that 
guarded  Shropshire  were  helpless  to  stem  the  tide. 
The  county  was  again  laid  waste  to  the  very  walls 
of  Shrewsbury  and  many  of  the  population  fled  to 
other  parts  of  England  for  a  livelihood.  Archdeacon 
Kingston  at  Hereford  once  again  takes  up  his  pen 
and  paints  a  lamentable  picture : 

"The  Welsh  rebels  in  great  numbers  have  entered 
Archenfield  [a  division  of  the  county]  and  there  they 
have  burnt  houses,  killed  the  inhabitants,  taken  prison- 
ers and  ravaged  the  country  to  the  great  dishonour  of 
our  King  and  the  unsupportable  damage  of  the  country. 


t404]  Owen  and  the  French  227 

We  have  often  advertised  the  King  that  such  mischief 
would  befall  us,  we  have  also  now  certain  information 
that  within  the  next  eight  days  the  rebels  are  resolved  to 
make  an  attack  in  the  March  of  Wales  to  its  utter  ruin, 
if  speedy  succour  be  not  sent.  True  it  is  indeed  that 
we  have  no  power  to  shelter  us  except  that  of  Lord 
Richard  of  York  and  his  men,  which  is  far  too  little  to 
defend  us  ;  we  implore  you  to  consider  this  very  peril- 
ous and  pitiable  case  and  to  pray  our  Sovereign  Lord 
that  he  will  come  in  his  Royal  person  or  send  some  per- 
son with  sufficient  power  to  rescue  us  from  the  invasion 
of  the  said  rebels.  Otherwise  we  shall  be  utterly  de- 
stroyed, which  God  forbid  ;  whoever  comes  will  as  we  are 
led  to  believe  have  to  engage  in  battle,  or  will  have  a 
very  severe  struggle  with  the  rebels.  And  for  God's 
sake  remember  that  honourable  and  valiant  man,  the 
Lord  Abergavenny  [William  Beauchamp],  who  is  on  the 
very  point  of  destruction  if  he  be  not  rescued.  Written 
in  haste  at  Hereford,  June  loth." 

A  fortnight  later  the  dread  of  Owen's  advance 
was  emphasised  by  Prince  Henry  himself,  who  was 
still,  in  conjunction  with  the  Duke  of  York,  in  charge 
of  the  Welsh  wars. 

"  Most  dread  and  sovereign  Lord  and  Father,  at 
your  high  command  in  your  other  gracious  letters,  I 
have  removed  with  my  small  household  to  the  city 
of  Worcester,  and  may  it  please  your  Royal  High- 
ness to  know  that  the  Welsh  have  made  a  descent 
on  Herefordshire,  burning  and  destroying  the  county 
with  very  great  force,  and  with  a  supply  of  provisions 
for  fifteen  days."  The  Prince  goes  on  to  say  that 
the  Welsh  are  assembled  with  all  their  power,  and 


228  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

to  save  the  county  of  Hereford  he  has  sent  for  all 
sorts  of  considerable  persons  (mentioned  by  name) 
to  meet  him  at  Worcester.  In  conjunction  with  these 
he  tells  the  King  he  will  "  do  to  the  utmost  of  his 
little  power,"  and  then  comes  the  inevitable  want  of 
money  and  the  impossibility  of  maintaining  troops 
in  the  field  or  meeting  the  expenses  of  the  garrisons. 
Another  letter  from  the  same  hand  a  few  days  after- 
wards warned  the  King  still  more  urgently  of  the 
pressing  danger  and  declared  how  impossible  it  was 
to  keep  his  troops  upon  the  frontier  without  pay  or 
provisions. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  these  strong  representa- 
tions brought  any  satisfaction  to  the  anxious  writers. 
The  sieges  of  those  castles  not  yet  taken  Owen  con- 
tinued to  prosecute  with  vigour,  while  his  captains 
continued  to  desolate  the  border  counties.  Glyndwr 
was  much  too  skilful  a  strategist  to  undertake  a 
serious  expedition  into  England.  The  cause  of 
Richard  and  Mortimer,  which  would  have  been  his 
only  war-cry,  had  been  shattered,  so  far  as  England 
was  concerned,  at  Shrewsbury.  All  Glyndwr  wanted 
was  Wales,  and  at  present  he  virtually  possessed  it. 
He  felt  confident  now,  moreover,  of  substantial 
assistance  from  the  French  King,  and  when  that 
arrived  he  might  perhaps  take  the  initiative  seriously 
against  Henry  on  behalf  of  his  son-in-law's  family. 
Nor  is  there  any  doubt  but  that  he  was  greatly  in- 
debted for  the  extraordinary  position  he  had 
achieved  to  the  chronic  impecuniosity  of  his  enemy, 
and  perhaps  indeed  to  his  own  reputation  for  magic 
art.     Who  can  say  ? 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  229 

One  brief  and  spirited  campaign,  however,  distin- 
guished this  summer,  or  more  probably  the  late 
spring  of  1404,  for  the  actual  date  is  uncertain. 
It  was  undertaken  by  a  strong  force  which  Beau- 
champ,  Earl  of  Warwick,  led  right  through  the 
present  county  of  Montgomery.  Glyndwr  threw 
himself  across  the  Earl's  path  at  Mynydd-cwm-du 
("the  black  mountain  hollow"):  a  fierce  battle  en- 
sued, in  which  the  Welsh  were  defeated  and  were  so 
closely  pressed  that  Owen's  banner  was  captured  and 
he  himself  very  nearly  taken.  Warwick  does  not 
seem  to  have  followed  up  his  advantage  ;  on  the 
contrary,  Glyndwr,  rallying  his  men,  followed  the 
Earl  back  to  the  Herefordshire  border  whither 
the  usual  lack  of  provender  had  sent  him,  and  there 
turned  the  tables  on  his  enemy,  beating  him  badly 
in  a  pitched  battle  at  Craig-y-dorth.  The  scene  of 
this  second  encounter  is  on  the  road  between  Chep- 
stow and  Monmouth,  near  Trelog  common. 

Early  in  August,  1404,  the  Shropshire  Marches 
were  so  sorely  pressed,  and  the  English  defences  so 
worn  out,  that  the  council  were  compelled  to  listen 
to  the  urgent  appeals  of  the  Salopians  and  grant  the 
people  of  that  county  leave  to  make  terms  with 
Owen  on  their  own  account  and  pay  him  exemption 
money.  The  same  privilege  had  also  to  be  extended 
to  Edward  de  Charleton,  Lord  of  Powys,  who  from 
his  "  Castle  de  la  Pole  "  (Welshpool)  made  a  truce 
with  the  Welsh.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
people  of  Welshpool,  though  practically  all  of  Welsh 
blood,  stood  by  their  lord  and  resisted  Owen 
throughout   the   whole   of   the   struggle.     For  this 


230  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

reason  Charleton  gave  them  a  fresh  charter  im- 
mensely enlarging  the  boundaries  of  the  borough, 
which  to  this  day  occupies  the  unique  position  of  ex- 
tending over  something  like  twenty  thousand  acres. 

Towards  the  end  of  August,  King  Henry  was 
forced  once  more  to  turn  his  attention  to  Wales. 
The  scandal  and  the  danger  were  growing  grievous. 
So  he  held  a  council  at  Tutbury,  the  minutes  of 
which  are  significant.  Eight  bishops,  eighteen  ab- 
bots and  priors,  nineteen  great  lords  and  barons,  and 
ninety-six  representatives  of  counties,  we  are  told, 
attended  it.  The  news  was  here  confirmed  that  the 
French  had  equipped  sixty  vessels  in  the  port  of 
Harfleur  and  were  about  to  fill  them  with  soldiers 
and  proceed  to  Owen's  assistance.  It  was  decided, 
however,  that  since  the  King  was  not  at  present  able 
to  raise  an  army  sufficiently  imposing  for  his  high 
estate,  he  should  remain  at  Tutbury  till  the 
meeting  of  Parliament  in  October.  As  campaigning 
against  Owen  even  in  the  summer  season  had  suffi- 
cient horrors  for  the  King,  the  logic  of  deferring  the 
expedition  till  November  can  only  be  explained  by 
sheer  lack  of  money.  At  least  one  would  have  sup- 
posed so  if  Henry  had  not  burked  the  whole  quest- 
ion, turned  his  back  once  more  on  his  lost  and 
desolated  province,  and  hastened  to  the  North. 

Prince  John,  the  King's  second  son,  was  now 
joined  with  Prince  Henry  in  the  titular  Governor- 
ship of  the  South  Wales  Marches,  and  the  royal 
brothers  were  voted  two  thousand  five  hundred 
archers  and  men-at-arms.  How  many  of  these  they 
got  is  another  story,   of  which  we  have  no  certain 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  231 

knowledge.  For  a  fortnight  it  was  all  they  could  do 
to  hold  their  own  as  they  pushed  slowly  through  to 
the  relief  of  Coity  Castle  (now  Oldcastle  Bridgend), 
which  was  being  bravely  defended  by  Sir  Alexander 
BerkroUes. 

With  the  exception  of  the  chronic  pressure  on  the 
still  resisting  castles,  this  autumn  and  winter  was 
comparatively  quiet  in  Wales,  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  Owen  had  it  all  his  own  way.  Aberyst- 
with  had  fallen  soon  after  Harlech ;  and  those  of 
my  readers  who  are  familiar  with  the  wave-washed 
situation  of  the  ruins  of  the  later  Norman  castle 
which  still  mark  the  site  of  the  ancient  palace  oif 
Cadwallader,  may  well  wonder  why  a  spot  so  acces- 
sible from  a  score  of  English  seaports  should  have 
been  abandoned  to  its  fate.  The  tower  and  monas- 
tery of  Llanbadarn,  too,  hard  by,  became  a  favourite 
resting-place  of  Owen's  at  this  time,  and  it  was  here 
he  ratified  this  winter  his  treaty  with  the  King  of 
France.  But  as  his  family  and  that  of  Mortimer 
would  appear  to  have  made  Harlech  their  head- 
quarters, and  as  later  on  he  summoned  his  second 
parliament  to  that  historic  spot,  it  is  more  than  likely 
that  the  late  autumn  and  winter  months  saw  the  old 
castle  the  gathering-point  of  the  bards,  and  the  rally- 
ing-place  of  Owen's  faithful  captains — a  court,  in  fact, 
and  one  more  adequately  housed  by  far  than  that 
other  one  at  the  mansion  on  the  Dee,  since  reduced 
to  a  heap  of  ashes.  As  one  wanders  to-day  amid 
the  grim  walls  of  Harlech  and  presses  the  soft  turf 
that  centuries  of  sun  and  showers  and  sea  mists  have 
spread  over  what  was  once  the  floor  of  its  great  ban- 


232  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

queting  hall,  the  scenes  that  it  must  have  witnessed 
in  this  winter  of  1404  are  well  calculated  to  stir  the 
fancy  and  captivate  the  imagination.  Death  and 
battle  have  been  in  ancient  times  busy  enough 
around  the  rock  of  Harlech  and  upon  the  green 
slopes  of  the  Ardudwy  Mountains  that  from  high 
above  its  grey  towers  look  out  upon  the  sea.  From 
the  days  of  Bran  the  Blessed,  the  first  Christian 
Prince,  whose  fortress,  Twr  Bronwen,  men  say,  stood 
upon  this  matchless  site,  till  those  of  the  fighting 
Maelgwyn,  King  of  Gwynedd,  when  the  coasts  of 
Wales  were  strewn  with  the  victims  of  plague  and 
battle,  it  was  a  notable  spot.  From  Colwyn  ap 
Tangno,  the  fountainhead  of  half  the  pedigrees  in 
North-west  Wales,  till  forty  years  after  Glyndwr's 
time,  when,  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  David  ap 
Sinion  made  that  celebrated  defence  against  Lord 
Herbert  which  inspired  the  writing  of  the  stirring 
and  immortal  march,  Harlech  was  a  focus  of  strife, 
the  delight  of  the  bard,  the  glory  of  the  minstrel. 
Of  all  Welsh  castles,  save  the  fragment  of  Dinas 
Bran, — and  that  is  indeed  saying  much, — it  is  the 
most  proudly  placed  ;  and  the  great  medieval  fortress, 
still  in  its  exterior  so  perfect,  is  well  worthy  of  its  site. 
Amid  a  pile  of  mountains  to  the  north  Snowdon 
lifts  its  shapely  peak ;  far  westward  into  the  shining 
sea  stretches  the  long  arm  of  West  Carnarvon, 
throwing  up  here  and  there  its  shadowy  outstanding 
peaks  till  it  fades  into  the  dim  horizon  behind  which 
Ireland  lies.  As  the  eye  travels  southward,  the 
lofty  headlands  of  Merioneth  give  way  to  the 
fainter  capes  of  Cardigan,  and  upon  the   verge   of 


«  c  o« 
"  c  t  »  e 


1404]  Owen  and  the  French  233 

sight  in  clear  weather  the  wild  coast  of  Pembroke, 
its  rugged  outhne  softened  by  distance,  lies  low  be- 
tween sea  and  sky. 

Those  to  whom  such  things  appeal  will  see  much 
that  is  appropriate  in  the  gathering  of  Glyndwr,  his 
bards,  his  warriors,  his  priests,  his  counsellors,  at 
Harlech  during  this  winter  which  perhaps  marked 
the  high-tide  of  his  renown.  His  wife,  ''  the  best  of 
wives,"  with  the  fair  Katherine,  wife  of  Mortimer, 
was  here,  and  a  crowd  of  dames,  we  may  be  well  as- 
sured, whose  manors  were  not  at  that  time,  with 
their  husbands  in  the  field,  the  safest  of  abodes  for 
lonely  females.  Owen's  three  married  daughters 
were  not  here,  for  the  Scudamores,  Monningtons, 
and  Crofts,  whose  names  they  bore,  being  Hereford- 
shire men,  were  all  upon  the  other  side.  Edmund 
Mortimer,  of  course,  was  present,  and  it  is  strange 
how  a  soldier  of  such  repute  and  of  so  vigorous 
a  stock  should  have  sunk  his  individuality  so  ab- 
solutely in  that  of  his  masterful  father-in-law. 
Glyndwr's  two  elder  sons,  now  grown  to  man's  es- 
tate, Griffith  and  Meredith,  and  his  own  younger 
brother,  Tudor,  who  was  soon  to  fall,  with  his 
brother-in-law,  John  Hanmer,  just  returned  from  his 
French  mission,  complete  the  family  group  that 
we  may  be  fairly  justified  in  picturing  at  Har- 
lech, assembled  round  the  person  of  their  now 
crowned  Prince.  Rhys  Gethin,  the  victor  of  Pilleth 
and  the  terror  of  the  South  Wales  Marches,  was 
probably  there,  and  the  two  Tudors  of -Penmynydd, 
whom  from  first  to  last  several  thousand  men  had 
followed  across  the  Menai  from  the  still  unmolested 


234  Owen  Glyndwr  [1403- 

fields  of  Anglesey.  Yonge  the  Chancellor,  too,  fresh 
from  France,  Llewelyn  Bifort,  whom,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  Avignon  Pope,  Owen  had  nominated  to 
the  wasted  estate  and  the  burnt  cathedral  of  Bangor, 
and  Bishop  Trevor  of  St.  Asaph,  most  eminent  of 
them  all,  were  at  Harlech  beyond  a  doubt.  Robert 
ap  Jevan  of  Ystymtegid  in  Eivioneth  was  most 
probably  there,  with  Rhys  Dwy,  "a  great  master 
among  them,"  who  was  executed  in  London  eight 
years  later,  and  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  Owen's 
faithful  laureate,  Griffith  Llwyd,  or  **  lolo  Goch," 
who,  among  all  the  bards  that  had  tuned  their 
voices  and  their  harps  to  Owen's  praise  and  been 
stirred  to  ecstasy  by  his  successes,  stood  first  and 
chief. 

Glyndwr  had  in  truth  no  cause  to  complain  of 
his  chief  bard,  who  was  a  veteran  in  song  when  war 
came  to  stimulate  him  to  patriotic  frenzy,  and  the 
stirring  tones  in  which  he  sang  of  his  Prince's  deeds 
were  echoed  by  every  native  harp  in  Wales. 

"  Immortal  fame  shall  be  thy  meed, 
Due  to  every  glorious  deed. 
Which  latest  annals  shall  record. 
Beloved  and  victorious  Lord, 
Grace,  wisdom,  valour,  all  are  thine, 
Owain  Glyndowerdy  divine, 
Meet  emblem  of  a  two-edged  sword. 
Dreaded  in  war,  in  peace  adored. 

"  Loud  fame  has  told  thy  gallant  deeds, 
In  every  word  a  Saxon  bleeds. 
Terror  and  flight  together  came, 


t404l  Owen  and  the  French  235 

Obedient  to  thy  mighty  name  ; 

Death  in  the  van  with  ample  stride 

Hew'd  thee  a  passage  deep  and  wide, 

Stubborn  as  steel  thy  nervous  chest 

With  more  than   mortal  strength  possessed." 

Though  a  metrical  translation  may  be  unsatisfactory 
enough  to  the  Celtic  scholar,  this  rendering  will  not 
be  without  interest  to  English  readers  as  giving  the 
sense,  at  any  rate,  of  words  addressed  to  Glyndwr  by 
the  man  nearest  to  his  person.  The  fourteenth  cen- 
tury was  the  halcyon  period  of  Welsh  song ;  Dafydd 
ap  Gwylim,  the  greatest  of  all  Welsh  love-poets,  was 
still  alive  in  Glyndwr's  youth,  while  Gutyn  Owen  was 
almost  a  contemporary.  Welsh  poetry  had  attuned 
itself,  since  the  Edwardian  conquest  had  brought 
comparative  peace  in  Wales,  to  gentler  and  more 
literary  themes.  The  joys  of  agriculture  and  country 
life,  the  happiness  of  the  peasant,  the  song  of  birds, 
the  murmur  of  streams,  and,  above  all,  the  gentler 
passions  of  human  nature  had  supplanted  to  a  great 
extent  the  fiercer  notes  of  martial  eulogies,  the  paeans 
of  victory,  and  the  plaintive  wails  over  long-past  but 
unforgotten  defeats.  It  is  strange,  too,  that  this  flow 
of  song  should  have  signalised  a  century  when  the 
profession  of  a  wandering  minstrel  was  in  Wales  for 
the  first  time  ostracised  by  law. 

But  the  old  martial  minstrelsy  was  not  dead.  The 
yearning  of  the  soldier  and  the  man  of  ancient  race 
to  emulate  the  deeds  or  the  supposed  deeds  of  his 
predecessors,  and  to  be  the  subject  after  death  of 
bardic  eulogy  in  hall  or  castle,  was  still  strong.  It 
helped  many  a  warrior  to  meet  with  cheerfulness  a 


236 


Owen  Glyndwr 


[1403-14041 


bloody  death,  or  with  the  memory  of  heroic  deeds 
performed  to  sink  with  resignation  at  the  hands  of 
disease  or  old  age  into  the  cold  grave. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WELSH   REVERSES 
1405 

GLYNDWR  was  now,  by  the  lowest  estimate,  in 
his  forty-sixth  year.  For  that  period,  when 
manhood  began  early,  and  old  age,  if  it 
came  at  all,  came  quickly,  he  certainly  carried  his 
years  with  remarkable  lightness.  Who  can  say, 
however,  with  what  feelings  he  surveyed  his  handi- 
work ?  From  end  to  end,  with  almost  the  sole 
exception  of  Anglesey  and  Carnarvonshire  and 
western  Pembroke,  Wales  lay  desolate  and  bleed- 
ing. Owen's  hands  were  red,  not  only  with  the 
blood  of  Saxons,  but  with  that  of  old  friends  and 
even  kinsmen.  Red  ravage  had  marked  his  steps, 
and  there  were  few  parts  of  the  country  that  he  had 
not  at  some  time  or  other  crossed  and  recrossed  in 
his  desolating  marches.  Carnarvonshire  and  west- 
ern Merioneth  and  the  Plinlimmon  Mountains  were 
full  of  booty,  stock,  and  valuables  brought  from 
Norman-Welsh  lordships  and  from  beyond  the  Eng- 
lish border.  The  admirers  of  Glyndwr  would  fain 
believe,  and  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the 

237 


238  Owen  Glyndwr  [hos 

theory,  that  passion  and  revenge  had  no  part  in  the 
havoc  which  the  Welsh  hero  spread  throughout  his 
native  land,  but  that  it  was  due  to  a  deliberate 
scheme  of  campaign  by  which  the  country  was  to  be 
made  not  only  too  hot,  but  too  bare,  to  hold  the 
Saxon. 

It  would  be  waste  of  words  to  speculate  on  mo- 
tives that  can  never  be  divulged  and  schemes  that 
have  left  no  witnesses.  We  have  at  any  rate  to  face 
tradition,  which  counts  for  much.  And  this  places 
Glyndwr  in  the  eyes  of  most  Welshmen,  with  all  his 
ravagings  and  burnings,  on  a  pedestal  above  the 
greatest  and  most  patriotic  of  their  older  Princes — 
above  Llewelyn  ap  lorwerth,  above  the  last  Llew- 
elyn, the  son  of  Gryffydd,  above  Owen  Gwynedd. 
The  cool-headed  student  may  be  much  less  enthusi- 
astic. But  he  will  also  call  to  mind  the  ethics  of 
war  in  those  days,  and  then  perhaps  remember  that 
even  in  modern  conflicts,  whose  memories  stand  out 
with  conspicuous  glory,  there  has  been  no  very 
great  improvement  on  the  methods  of  Glyndwr. 
The  Carolinian  who  preferred  King  George  to  Wash- 
ington and  Congress — and  King  George  after  all  was 
at  least  no  usurper — suffered  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  Welshmen  of  Glamorgan  or  Carmarthen 
or  Merioneth  who  from  prudence  or  inclination  pre- 
ferred Bolingbroke  to  Glyndwr.  Wars  of  this  type 
have  ever  been  ferocious.  The  Anglo-Americans  of 
the  eighteenth  century  were  a  civilised  and  peaceful 
people;  Glyndwr  lived  at  a  time  when  war  was  a 
trade,  ravage  its  handmaid,  and  human  life  of  but 
small  account. 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  239 

It  is  quite  possible  to  overestimate  the  effect  upon 
a  country  in  those  days  of  even  the  most  merci- 
less treatment.  The  torch  was  not  the  instrument 
of  irreparable  loss  that  it  would  have  been  if  applied 
with  equal  freedom  only  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
later.  Outside  the  feudal  castles  and  the  great 
ecclesiastical  foundations,  there  were  few  permanent 
structures  of  much  value  either  in  England  or  Wales. 
It  was  late  in  the  century  with  which  we  are  dealing 
before  the  manor-house  and  grange  of  the  yeoman  or 
country  gentleman  became  buildings  of  the  style 
with  which  careless  fancy  is  apt  to  associate  their 
names.  It  is  salutary  sometimes  to  leave  the  ordin- 
ary paths  of  history  and  refresh  one's  mind  with 
the  domestic  realities  of  olden  days  as  they  are 
shown  to  us  by  writers  who  have  given  their  atten- 
tion to  such  humble  but  helpful  details.  The  ordin- 
ary English  manor-house  of  Glyndwr's  time  was  a 
plain  wooden  building,*  with  an  escape-hole  in  the 
thatched  roof  for  the  smoke,  a  floor  covered  with 
rushes,  and  filthy  from  lack  of  change,  with  bare 
boards  laid  on  rude  supports  doing  duty  as  tables. 
A  little  tapestry  sometimes  relieved  the  crudeness  of 
the  bare  interior  where  such  a  crowd  of  human  be- 
ings often  gathered  together.  Here  and  there  an 
important  person  built  for  himself  a  compromise  be- 
tween a  manor  and  a  castle,  Glyndwr  himself  being 
an  instance  to  the  point.     The  average  manor-houses 


*  Mr.  Denton,  in  his  England  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  allows  no 
more  than  four,  and  usually  only  three  rooms,  to  an  average  manor- 
house  :  one  for  eating  in,  with  a  second,  and  perhaps  a  third,  for 
sleeping  ;  a  fire  in  the  centre  of  the  first. 


240  Owen  Glyndwr  .  [1405 

of  Wales,  the  abodes  of  the  native  gentry,  were  cer- 
tainly no  more,  probably  less,  luxurious,  and  not  of- 
ten— though  some  were  even  then — built  of  stone. 
As  for  the  peasantry,  their  dwellings  in  either  the 
England  or  Wales  of  that  time  were  mere  huts 
of  mud,  wood,  or  wattle,  and  were  often,  no  doubt, 
not  worth  the  trouble  of  destroying. 

The  Welsh  of  those  days,  unhke  the  English,  did 
not  group  themselves  in  villages.  Each  man  not  an 
actual  servant,  whether  he  were  gentleman  or  small 
yeoman,  lived  apart  upon  his  property  or  holding. 
If  we  eliminate  the  present  towns,  the  country  must 
have  been  in  most  parts  almost  as  thickly  populated 
as  it  is  now.  A  valuable  survival,  known  as  the 
Record  of  Carnarvon,  di  sort  of  local  doomsday  book, 
dating  from  the  thirteenth  century,  may  be  seen  to- 
day, and  it  gives  very  detailed  information  as  to 
the  persons,  manors,  and  freeholds  of  that  country, 
and  some  idea  of  how  well  peopled  for  the  times 
was  even  the  wildest  part  of  wild  Wales.  Prince 
Henry,  it  will  be  remembered,  speaks  of  the  Vale  of 
Edeyrnion  as  a  fine  and  populous  country.  Giraldus 
Cambrensis,  in  his  graphic  account  of  his  tour  with 
Archbishop  Baldwin  in  the  twelfth  century,  gives  the 
same  impression.  Still  the  destruction  of  such  build- 
ings as  the  mass  of  its  people  lived  in,  even  if  they 
were  destroyed,  was  of  no  vital  consequence.  The 
loss  of  a  year's  crop  was  not  irreparable,  particularly 
in  a  country  where  sheep  and  cattle,  which  could 
often,  be  driven  away,  were  the  chief  assets  of  rural 
life.  Glyndwr,  to  be  sure,  did  what  few  other  makers 
of  war,  even  in  Wales,  had  done,  for  he  destroyed 


1406]  Welsh  Reverses  241 

some  of  the  chief  ecclesiastical  buildings.  He  burnt, 
moreover,  several  of  the  small  towns  and  dismantled 
many  castles.  "  Deflower'd  by  Glindor "  is  a  re- 
mark frequently  in  the  mouth  of  old  Leland  as  he 
went  on  his  immortal  survey  not  much  more  than  a 
hundred  years  later. 

The  term  "  rebel,"  as  applied  to  Glyndwr  and 
those  Welshmen  who  followed  him,  is  more  con- 
venient than  logical.  However  bad  a  king  Richard 
may  have  been,  the  Welsh  had  never  wavered  in 
their  allegiance  to  him.  However  excellent  a  mon- 
arch Henry  might  have  made  if  he  had  been  given 
the  chance,  he  was  at  least  an  usurper,|and  a  breaker 
of  his  word.  London  and  parts  of  England  had 
welcomed  him  to  the  throne.  The  Percys  and  in- 
numerable other  Englishmen  who  then  and  at  vari- 
ous other  times  conspired  against  him  were  rebels 
beyond  a  doubt.  But  the  Welsh  had  never  even 
been  consulted  in  the  coup  d'etat  by  which  he  seized 
the  crown.  They  had  never  recognised  him  as  king 
nor  sworn  allegiance.  To  them  he  was  simply  an 
usurper  and  the  almost  certain  assassin  of  their  late 
King.  If  Richard  were  alive,  then  Henry  could  not 
be  their  lawful  sovereign.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
had  been  done  to  death,  which  either  directly  or  in- 
directly he  surely  had  been,  then  the  boy  Earl  of 
March,  as  all  the  world  knew,  should  be  on  the 
throne.  Henry  of  Monmouth,  too,  being  the  son  of 
an  usurper,  could  not  possibly  be  Prince  of  Wales. 
The  place  was  vacant,  and  the  opportunity  for  elect- 
ing one  of  their  own  race  and  blood  was  too  good  to 
be  missed.     Whatever  historians  may  choose  to  call 

16 


242  Owen  Glyndwr  [1405 

Glyndwr,  he  was  logically  no  rebel  in  a  period  when 
allegiance  was  almost  wholly  a  personal  matter.  His 
enemies,  whom  he  hunted  out  of  Wales  or  pent  up 
in  their  castles,  were,  on  the  other  hand,  from  his 
point  of  view,  rebels  and  traitors  in  recognising  the 
authority  and  protection  of  an  usurper.  The  Welsh 
people  owed  no  allegiance  to  the  English,  but  to  the 
King  of  England  and  Wales,  to  whom  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  isle  of  Britain,  as  the  old  tradition 
still  ran,  they  paid  a  sum  of  £60^000  a  year.  In 
their  eyes,  as  in  those  of  many  persons  in  England 
and  of  most  in  Europe,  Henry  was  Henry  of  Lan- 
caster, not  King  of  England.  The  Welsh  tribute,  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  had  dwindled,  since  the 
rising  of  Glyndwr,  to  insignificant  proportions,  while 
the  war  expenses  it  entailed,  together  with  this  loss 
of  income,  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  that  im- 
pecuniosity  which  prevented  Henry  from  ever  really 
showing  of  what  stuff  as  a  ruler  he  was  made. 

The  chief  incident  of  the  early  part  of  the  year 
1405  was  a  nearly  successful  plot  to  carry  off  from 
the  King's  keeping  the  young  Earl  of  March,  the 
rightful  heir  to  the  crown,  and  his  brother.  Being 
nephews  of  Sir  Edmund  Mortimer,  the  attempt  to 
bring  them  to  Glyndwr's  headquarters  in  Wales  and 
to  the  protection  of  their  uncle  was  a  natural  one. 
The  King,  who  was  spending  Christmas  at  Eltham, 
had  left  the  boys  behind  him  at  Windsor,  under  the 
charge  of  Hugh  de  Waterton,  Constable  of  the 
Castle.  Their  domestic  guardian  was  the  widow  of 
the  Lord  Despencer  and  sister  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
who  at  this  time,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  in  joint 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  243 

charge  with  Prince  Henry  of  Welsh  affairs.  The 
Despencers  had  been  Norman-Welsh  barons  for 
some  generations,  their  interests  at  this  time  lying 
for  the  most  part  in  what  is  now  Monmouthshire, 
and  though  ostensibly  hostile,  they  had  old  ties  of 
blood  and  propinquity  with  the  house  of  Mortimer. 
This  Christmas  witnessed  one  of  the  many  plots 
against  the  King's  life,  but  with  these  we  have  nothing 
to  do,  except  in  so  far  that  the  moment  was  regarded 
as  being  a  favourable  one  for  making  an  effort  to  get 
hold  of  the  two  royal  boys.  How  unstable  were 
Henry's  friends  for  the  most  part  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  the  Duke  of  York,  his  trusted  repre- 
sentative in  Wales,  was  himself  privy  to  the  scheme. 
To  Lady  Despencer  was  entrusted  the  chief  part 
in  this  dangerous  work.  As  sister  to  the  Duke  of 
York,  she  was  in  the  King's  eyes  above  all  suspicion. 
When  the  latter  had  left  Windsor  for  Eltham  she 
caused  a  locksmith  secretly  to  make  false  keys,  and 
by  means  of  these,  with  the  connivance  of  some  serv- 
ants, she  contrived  to  get  her  two  wards  safely  out  of 
the  castle  precincts,  taking  with  her  at  the  same  time 
her  own  son.  Horses  and  attendants  were  ready  in 
waiting,  and  the  whole  party  pushed  for  the  West 
with  all  the  expedition  of  which  they  were  capable. 
They  had  passed  through  Berkshire  before  the  King 
heard  the  news  of  their  escape.  When  it  reached 
him,  however,  no  time  was  lost.  Sending  out  swift 
messengers  upon  the  track  of  the  fugitives  he  him- 
self at  once  hastened  to  Windsor.  The  pursuers 
were  just  in  time  and  overtook  the  illustrious  fugi- 
tives in  Gloucestershire  within  a  day's  ride  of  the 


244  Owen  Glyndwr  [i405 

security  which  Mortimer  and  Glyndwr's  people  were 
waiting  to  afford  them  in  Wales.  A  lively  brush, 
not  without  slaughter  on  both  sides,  signalised  the 
meeting,  but  the  lady  and  the  boys  were  captured 
and  conveyed  back  to  London.  Lady  Despencer 
then  revealed  the  plot  to  murder  the  King,  denounc- 
ing her  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  as  a  leading  con- 
spirator. This  was  not  a  sisterly  action,  and  the 
Duke  loudly  denied  all  knowledge  of  such  dastardly 
intentions.  At  this  the  lady,  whose  private  reputa- 
tion was  not  all  that  it  should  have  been,  waxed  in- 
dignant and  clamorously  demanded  a  champion  to 
maintain  her  declaration  with  lance  and  sword. 
Whereupon  a  gentleman  named  William  Maidstone 
flung  down  his  glove  to  the  Duke  in  the  very 
presence  of  the  King.  The  challenge  was  accepted, 
but,  the  Duke  being  apparently  of  corpulent  build 
and  the  challenger  both  at  a  physical  advantage  and 
of  no  distinction,  the  romantic  combat  never  took 
place.  Perhaps  the  King  wished  to  get  the  Duke 
into  his  hands  without  loss  of  time,  for  he  seized 
him  and  sent  him  to  the  Tower  instead  of  into  the 
lists.  He  was  soon,  however,  as  an  illustration  of 
how  forgiving  Henry  could  at  times  be,  pardoned 
and  reinstated  to  the  full  in  all  his  honours.  His 
sister,  however,  whose  tenants  were  nearly  all  sup- 
porters of  Glyndwr,  was  stripped  of  her  property. 
But  they,  too,  were  eventually  restored,  and  their 
feudal  superior,  who  made  no  little  stir  in  her  time, 
lies  buried  amid  the  ruins  of  the  old  abbey  at  Read- 
ing. The  unfortunate  locksmith  who  had  made  the 
keys  had  both  his  hands  chopped  off. 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  245 

The  castles  of  Caerleon,  Caerphilly,  Newport,  and 
Usk  had  fallen,  and  in  the  manuscripts  collected  by 
lolo  Morganwg  (Edward  Williams),  who  flourished  in 
the  last  century,  an  apparently  contemporaneous 
though  anonymous  writer,  has  somewhat  to  say  about 
Glyndwr  in  Morganwg  or  Glamorgan.  He  tells  how 
Owen  came  to  Cardiff,  "  destroyed  it  and  won  the 
castle,"  demolishing  at  the  same  time  the  castles  of 
Penllan,  Llandochau,  Flemington,  Dunraven  of  the 
Butlers,  Tal-y-fan,  Llanblethian,  Llangeinor,  Male- 
fant,  and  Penmark,  and  burning  many  villages  the 
men  of  which  would  not  join  him.  "  The  country 
people  collected  round  him  with  one  accord  and  de- 
molished houses  and  castles  innumerable,  laid  waste 
and  quite  fenceless  the  lands,  and  gave  them  in  com- 
mon to  all."  The  manuscript  goes  on  to  say  how 
Glyndwr  "  took  away  from  the  rich  and  powerful  and 
distributed  the  plunder  among  the  weak  and  poor." 
Many  of  the  higher  orders  of  chieftains  had  to  fly  to 
England  under  the  protection  and  support  of  the 
King.  A  bloody  battle  took  place  at  Bryn  Owen 
(Stallingdown)  near  Cowbridge,  between  Glyndwr 
and  the  King's  men.  The  latter  were  put  to  flight 
after  eighteen  hours'  hard  fighting, "  during  which  the 
blood  was  up  to  the  horses*  fetlocks  at  Pant-y-wenol, 
that  separates  both  ends  of  the  mountain."  Here  be- 
yond a  doubt  was  a  fulfilment  of  one  of  the  dread 
portents  that  attended  Owen's  birth,  when  the  horses, 
it  will  be  remembered,  in  his  father's  stable  were 
found  standing  with  the  blood  running  over  their 
feet.  There  is  no  date  to  this  anonymous  but  evid- 
ently sincere  and  suggestive  narrative,  or  rather  the 


246  Owen  Glyndwr  [1405 

date  assigned  to  the  event  is  evidently  an  error. 
The  matters  here  spoken  of  belong  to  1403,  or  1404, 
in  all  probability,  though  they  can  only  be  inserted 
parenthetically  as  one  of  those  scraps  of  local  Welsh 
testimony  from  the  period  itself  that  have  an  interest 
of  their  own. 

The  year  1405  opened  with  reports  that  the  re- 
nowned Rhys  Gethin  was  to  cross  the  English  bor- 
der with  a  large  force.  Prince  Henry,  now  eighteen 
years  of  age,  with  an  experience  of  war  under  diffi- 
culties and  of  carking  cares  of  state  such  as  has 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  few  men  so  young,  prepared  to 
make  ready  for  him.  Short  of  men  and  money,  the 
young  soldier  had  long  begun  to  show  of  what 
mettle  he  was  made  and  to  give  evidence  of  the  ability 
that  was  eventually  to  do  more  to  arrest  the  resist- 
ance of  Glyndwr  than  all  the  combined  efforts  of 
Lord  Marchers  and  their  royal  master. 

Rumour  on  this  occasion  proved  true,  for  Rhys, 
passing  through  Glamorgan  with  eight  thousand  men 
and  skirting  Abergavenny,  attacked  the  border  town 
of  Grosmont,  in  the  valley  of  the  Monnow,  and  burnt 
it  to  the  ground.  Grosmont  had  hitherto  been  a 
flourishing  place,  but  it  never  recovered  from  the 
blow  then  dealt  it.  In  Camden's  time  the  remains  of 
streets  and  causeways  could  be  traced  beneath  the 
turf  of  the  surrounding  fields  in  evidence  of  its 
vanished  glories.  To-day  it  is  a  picturesque  and 
peaceful  village  crowning  a  high  ridge,  from  which 
a  glorious  prospect  can  be  enjoyed  of  the  vale  of  the 
Monnow  with  the  sparkling  river  hurrying  down- 
wards  between   lofty  hills  to  meet  the   Wye.    A 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  247 

simple  street,  and  that  a  short  one,  is  all  that  remains, 
while  an  old  town  hall  speaks  eloquently  of  its  de- 
parted importance.  A  cruciform  church  of  great  age 
with  an  octagonal  tower  and  spire  springing  from  the 
centre  lends  force  to  the  tradition  of  Grosmont's 
former  glories.  Above  all,  the  walls  of  the  Norman 
castle,  whence  issued  Prince  Henry's  gallant  band, 
still  stand  hard  by  the  village,  their  reddish  stone- 
work half  hidden  amid  a  mass  of  ivy  and  the  foliage 
of  embowering  trees  ;  the  moat  half  full  of  the  leaves 
of  many  autumns,  the  ramparts  green  with  the 
turf  of  ages ;  a  quiet  enough  spot  now  but  for  the 
song  of  birds  and  the  tumble  of  the  river  upon  its 
rocks  three  hundred  feet  below.  It  was  here  that 
Glyndwr's  forces  met  with  their  first  serious  disaster 
upon  the  border,  for  the  Prince,  together  with  Gilbert 
Talbot  and  Sir  Edward  Newport,  sallying  out  of  the 
castle,  attacked  Rhys  Gethin  and  inflicted  upon  the 
Welsh  a  severe  and  bloody  defeat,  completely  rout- 
ing them  with  a  loss  of  eight  hundred  men  left  dead 
upon  the  field.  It  is  especially  stated  in  some  accounts 
that  no  quarter  was  given,  and  only  one  prisoner  taken 
alive  and  spared  for  ransom,  of  whom  Prince  Henry, 
in  a  letter  to  his  father  which  is  worth  transcribing, 
speaks  as  "  a  great  chieftain." 

"  My  most  redoubted  and  most  Sovereign  Lord  and 
father,  I  sincerely  pray  that  God  will  graciously  show  His 
miraculous  aid  towards  you  in  all  places,  praised  be  He 
in  all  His  works,  for  on  Wednesday  the  eleventh  of  this 
present  month  of  March,  your  rebels  of  the  parts  of 
Glamorgan,  Morgannok,  Usk,  Netherwent,  and  Over- 
went,   assembled    to   the    number   of   eight    thousand 


248  Owen  Glyndwr  [1405 

men,  according  to  their  own  account,  and  they  went  on 
the  same  Wednesday,  in  the  morning,  and  burnt  a  part 
of  your  town  of  Grossmont  within  your  Lordship  of 
Monmouth  and  Jennoia  \sic\.  Presently  went  out  my  well 
beloved  cousin  the  Lord  Talbot  and  the  small  body  of 
my  household,  and  with  them  joined  your  faithful  and 
valiant  knights  William  Newport  and  John  Greindor,  the 
which  formed  but  a  small  power  in  the  whole  ;  but  true 
it  is  indeed  that  victory  is  not  in  the  multitude  of  people, 
and  this  was  well  proved  there,  but  in  the  power  of  God, 
and  there  by  the  aid  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  your  people 
gained  the  field,  and  vanquished  all  the  said  rebels,  and 
slew  of  them  by  fair  account  in  field,  by  the  time  of  their 
return  from  the  pursuit,  some  say  eight  hundred, 
others  a  thousand,  being  questioned  upon  pain  of 
death  ;  nevertheless  whether  it  were  one  or  the  other 
I  will  not  contend,  and  to  inform  you  fully  of  all  that  has 
been  done,  I  send  you  a  person  worthy  of  credit  therein, 
my  faithful  servant  the  bearer  of  this  letter,  who  was  at 
the  engagement  and  performed  his  duty  well,  as  he  has 
always  done.  And  such  amends  has  God  ordained  you 
for  the  burning  of  your  houses  in  your  aforesaid  town, 
and  of  prisoners  were  none  taken  except  one,  a  great  chief 
among  them,  whom  I  would  have  sent  to  you  but  he  can- 
not yet  ride  at  ease. 

"  Written  at  Hereford  the  said  Wednesday  at  night. 
"  Your  most  humble  and  obedient  son, 

"  Henry." 

Glyndvi^r,  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  disaster  on  the 
Monnow,  pushed  up  fresh  forces  under  his  brother 
Tudor  to  meet  the  fugitives  from  Grosmont,  with 
a  view  to  wipe  out,  if  possible,  that  crushing  defeat. 
What  strength  they  got,  if  any,  from  Rhys  Gethin's 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  249 

scattered  army  there  is  no  evidence,  but  in  less  than 
a  week  they  encountered  the  Prince  himself  advanc- 
ing into  Wales  with  a  considerable  force,  and  at 
Mynydd-y-Pwll-Melyn,  in  Brecon,  received  a  defeat 
more  calamitous  than  even  that  of  Grosmont.  Fif- 
teen hundred  of  the  Welsh  were  killed  or  taken  pris- 
oners. Among  the  slain  was  Owen's  brother  Tudor 
himself ;  and  so  like  the  chief  was  he  in  face  and 
form  that  for  some  time  there  was  much  rejoicing, 
and  the  news  was  bruited  about  that  the  dreaded 
Glyndwr  was  in  truth  dead.  The  spirits  of  the  Eng- 
lish were  sadly  damped  when  the  absence  of  a  wart 
under  the  left  eye,  a  distinguishing  mark  of  Glyndwr, 
proclaimed  that  their  joy  was  premature,  and  that  it 
was  the  dead  face  of  his  younger  brother  on  which 
they  were  gazing.  Among  the  prisoners,  however, 
was  his  son  GryfTydd,  who  was  sent  by  the  Prince  to 
London  and  confined  in  the  Tower,  statements  of 
money  allowed  for  his  maintenance  there  appearing 
from  time  to  time  on  the  Rolls.  Gryffydd's  (Grififin 
he  is  there  called)  fellow-prisoner  is  Owen  ap  Gryf- 
fydd,  the  son  probably  of  the  valiant  Cardiganshire 
gentleman  whom  Henry  quartered  in  1402.  A  year 
later  the  young  King  of  Scotland,  whose  life  was 
safer  there,  no  doubt,  than  in  his  own  country,  was  the 
companion  of  Glyndwr 's  son.  The  lolo  manuscript 
before  mentioned  tells  us : 

"  In  1405  a  bloody  battle  attended  with  great  slaugh- 
ter that  in  severity  was  scarcely  ever  exceeded  in  Wales 
took  place  on  Pwll  Melin;  Gryffyth  ap  Owen  and  his 
men  were  taken  and   many   of   them  imprisoned,  but 


250  Owen  Glyndwr  [1405 

many  were  put  to  death  when  captured,  whereupon  all 
Glamorgan  turned  Saxon  except  a  small  number  who 
followed  their  lord  to  North  Wales." 

These  two  severe  defeats  were  a  great  blow  to 
Owen's  prestige.  They  caused  numbers  of  his  adher- 
ents in  South  Wales  to  fall  away  and  to  seek  that 
pardon  which  the  King,  to  do  him  justice,  was  at  all 
times  very  free  in  extending  to  Welshmen.  Indeed, 
it  would  almost  seem  as  if  he  himself  secretly  recog- 
nised the  fact  that  they  had  much  justice  on  their 
side  and  were  rebels  rather  in  name  than  in  actual 
fact. 

About  the  time  of  the  second  of  these  two  victo- 
ries over  the  Welsh,  the  King,  encouraged  no  doubt 
by  such  successes,  began  making  great  preparations 
for  a  personal  expedition  against  Glyndwr.  His  ac- 
tivity in  other  parts,  for  the  North  was  always  sim- 
mering, had  been  prodigious.  He  now  arrived  at 
Hereford  early  in  May,  full  of  determination  to  sup- 
port in  person  the  zeal  so  lately  aroused  in  his  hard- 
worked  constables  and  lieutenants,  and  once  and  for 
all  to  suppress  the  accursed  magician  who  for  five 
years  had  so  entirely  got  the  better  of  him. 

But  Glyndwr  previous  to  these  defeats  had  sent 
emissaries  to  the  North.  Three  of  his  immediate 
councillors  were  in  Northumberland  in  secret  con- 
clave with  its  crafty  and  ill-advised  Earl.  The  King, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  not  only  forgiven  Percy 
but  had  restored  to  him  all  his  confiscated  estates. 
That  he  was  prepared  again  to  risk  the  substance  for 
the  shadow  (to  say  nothing  of  committing  an  act  of 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  251 

ingratitude  that  even  for  those  days  was  indecent) 
is  conclusive  evidence  that  his  dead  son,  Hotspur,  was 
not  the  evil  genius  his  father  had  with  poor  spirit 
represented  him  to  be  when  craving  mercy  from  the 
King.  Glyndwr,  however,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  old  Earl's  conscience  when  for  the  second  time 
he  seemed  anxious  for  an  alliance.  Bishop  Trevor, 
with  Bifort,  Glyndwr's  Bishop  of  Bangor,  and  David 
Daron,  Dean  of  Bangor,  were  now  all  in  the  North 
intriguing  with  Northumberland.  In  the  early  days 
of  the  Welsh  rising  Glyndwr  seemed  to  have  some 
personal  and  even  sentimental  leaning  towards  the 
Percys.  There  was  nothing  of  that,  however,  in  his 
present  attitude,  which  was  purely  a  business  one, 
seeing  that  the  French,  as  he  thought,  and  rightly 
so,  were  on  the  point  of  coming  to  his  assistance, 
and  the  North  about  to  rise  in  arms  against  Henry. 
Even  the  loss  of  men  and  of  his  own  prestige,  en- 
tailed by  the  defeats  of  Grosmont  and  Pwll-Melyn 
and  the  falling  away  of  Glamorgan,  might  be  much 
more  than  counterbalanced.  The  first  mutterings  of 
the  outbreak  came  from  York,  but  they  were  loud 
enough  to  pull  the  King  up  at  Hereford  and  start 
him  at  full  speed  for  Yorkshire.  Once  more  his 
sorely  tried  servants  in  Wales  had  to  do  as  best  they 
could  without  him,  though  some  compensation  in 
the  way  of  men  and  supplies  was  sent  to  their  re- 
lief. It  is  not  within  my  province  to  follow  Henry's 
operations  this  summer  in  the  North,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary to  our  narrative  to  state  that  Percy  escaped 
from  York  only  just  in  time,  having  refused  the 
really  magnanimous  conditions  of  pardon  that  the 


^52  Owen  Glyndwr  tnos 

King  sent  on  to  him.  He  fled  to  Scotland,  taking 
with  him  his  fellow-conspirator,  Earl  Bardolph,  and 
Glyndwr's  three  emissaries,  Trevor,  Bifort,  and  David 
Daron.  Another  Welshman  of  Owen's  party,  how- 
ever, who  has  not  been  hitherto  mentioned.  Sir  John 
Griffith,  was  caught  at  York  and  executed.  Many 
persons  besides  Percy  were  implicated  in  the  plot, 
Archbishop  Scrope  for  one,  whose  execution,  with 
many  accompanying  indignities,  sent  a  thrill  of  hor- 
ror throughout  Britain  and  Europe ;  Judge  Gas- 
coine's  courageous  refusal  to  sentence  the  prelate 
being,  of  course,  one  of  the  familiar  incidents  of  the 
reign.  For  the  second  time  the  Percy  estates  were 
confiscated,  while  the  suppression  of  the  revolt  and 
the  punishment  of  the  rebels  kept  the  King  linger- 
ing for  a  long  time  in  the  North.  At  the  end  of 
July  he  received  the  serious  news  that  the  French 
had  landed  in  South  Wales,  and,  hurrying  southward, 
reached  Worcester  about  the  loth  of  August,  to 
find  Glyndwr  with  some  ten  thousand  Welshmen  and 
nearly  half  as  many  French  within  nine  miles  of  that 
city. 

We  must  now  return  to  Wales  and  to  the  earlier 
part  of  the  summer,  that  we  may  learn  how  this 
transformation  came  about  within  so  short  a  time. 
After  Glyndwr's  two  defeats  in  March,  and  the  sub- 
sequent panic  among  the  men  of  Glamorgan  and 
no  doubt  also  among  those  of  Gwent  and  parts  of 
Brycheiniog,  the  chieftain  himself  with  a  following 
of  tried  and  still  trusty  men  went  to  North  Wales. 
Welsh  historians,  following  one  another,  paint  most 
dismal  pictures  of   Owen   this  summer,   represent- 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  253 

ing  him  as  a  solitary  wanderer,  travelling  incognito 
about  the  country,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes 
with  a  handful  of  faithful  followers,  now  lurking  in 
friends'  houses,  now  hiding  in  mountain  caverns,  but 
always  dogged  by  relentless  foes.  All  these  things 
he  did  in  after  years  with  sufficient  tenacity  to 
satisfy  the  most  enthusiastic  lover  of  romance.  That 
his  condition  can  have  come  to  such  a  pass  in  the 
summer  of  1405  is  too  manifestly  absurd  to  be  worth 
discussion.  He  had  received,  it  is  true,  a  blow 
severe  enough  to  discourage  the  localities  near 
which  it  happened,  and  probably  to  frighten  a  good 
many  of  his  friends  in  other  parts.  It  is  possible, 
too,  some  may  have  sued  secretly  for  pardon.  But 
when  we  consider  that  in  March  all  Wales  except 
certain  castles  was  faithful,  and  that  his  troops  were 
attacking  the  English  border  when  repulsed  ;  that  in 
May  the  King  and  his  lieutenants  were  only  prepar- 
ing to  invade  Wales  ;  that  no  operations  of  moment 
were  so  far  as  we  know  executed  during  the  early 
summer  against  the  Welsh ;  and  finally  that  in  July 
Glyndwr  met  the  French  at  Tenby  with  ten  thou- 
sand men  behind  him,  it  is  quite  incredible  that  1405 
can  have  been  the  season  in  which  he  spent  months 
as  an  outcast  and  a  wanderer.  We  may,  I  think,  take 
it  as  certain  that  Glyndwr's  star  had  not  yet  sensibly 
declined,  and  that  what  he  had  recently  lost  might 
well  be  considered  as  more  than  cancelled  by  the  ap- 
pearance in  Milford  Bay  of  140  French  ships  full  of 
soldiers. 

While  the  coming  of  the  French  was  still  an  uncer- 
tainty, it  is  probable  that  there  was   considerable 


2  54  Owefi  Glyndwr  [1405 

depression  even  among  Owen's  immediate  followers. 
But  neither  he  nor  they  were  cherishing  it  in  caves 
and  solitudes.  On  the  contrary,  another  parliament, 
similarly  constituted  to  the  former  one  at  Machyn- 
lleth, was  summoned  to  Harlech.  Of  the  result  of 
its  deliberations  we  know  nothing,  but  a  letter  of  the 
period  suggests  that  Glyndwr  was  not  wholly  with- 
out thought  of  making  terms  in  case  of  the  non-ar- 
rival of  the  French.  At  the  same  time  this  is  not 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  stubborn  resistance  that 
in  after  years,  when  all  hope  had  fled,  he  maintained 
with  such  heroic  fortitude.  Two  of  the  county  re- 
presentatives, at  any  rate,  who  came  to  Harlech  on 
this  occasion  were  trimmers  or  worse.  David  Whit- 
more  and  levan  ap  Meredydd  were  supposed  to  re- 
present his  interests  in  Flint,  but  we  are  told  that, 
before  departing  for  the  West,  they  held  private 
communication  with  Sir  John  Stanley,  who  was  in 
charge  of  the  important  castle  of  Hope  for  the  King. 
To  be  brief,  they  went  as  spies  rather  than  as  sup- 
porters, and  with  the  intention  of  keeping  the  Eng- 
lish informed  of  what  took  place.  But  it  was  now 
already  summer  and  while  this  season  was  still  at  its 
height,  the  event  which  Glyndwr  was  hoping  and 
looking  for  took  place. 

The  French  had  made  many  attempts  in  the  pre- 
ceding year  to  reach  Wales ;  a  few,  as  we  know, 
touched  the  coast,  and  lent  some  slight  assistance  at 
Carnarvon  and  elsewhere.  Now,  however,  a  more 
successful  effort  and  upon  an  infinitely  larger  scale 
was  made,  and  140  ships  found  their  way  from 
Brest  to  Milford  without  any  mishap  save  the  loss  of 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  255 

their  horses  from  lack  of  fresh  water.  The  number 
of  troops  carried  by  this  fleet  is  variously  estimated 
at  from  about  3000  to  12,000  men.  Madame  De 
Lussan,  the  French  historian  of  the  period,  is  very 
definite  so  far  as  she  goes,  for  without  mentioning  the 
grand  total  she  states  that  there  were  among  them 
800  men-at-arms,  600  crossbows,  and  1200  foot- 
soldiers,  all  picked  troops.  But  then,  again,  the 
French  "  man-at-arms "  of  the  period  included  a 
squire,  a  page,  and  three  archers,  so  that  the  entire 
French  force  probably  numbered  from  4000  to  5000 
men.  The  command  was  nominally  in  the  hands  of 
Jean  de  Rieux,  Marshal  of  France,  but  the  Sire  de 
Hugueville  was  the  leading  spirit,  not  only  in  the  in- 
ception but  also  in  the  conduct  of  the  enterprise.  He 
had  actually  sold  to  the  Church  his  large  estate  of 
Agencourt  near  Montdidier,  and  devoted  the  pro- 
ceeds to  the  adventure  which  he  had  so  much  at 
heart.  There  seems  at  any  rate  to  have  been  no 
stint  of  money  in  the  undertaking,  for  it  is  particu- 
larly noted  what  bravery  of  apparel  and  fine  trap- 
pings distinguished  this  French  army  when  it 
landed  at  Milford  Haven.  The  fleet  left  Brest  on 
July  22nd  and  arrived  early  in  August  in  excellent 
condition,  with  the  exception,  as  I  have  said,  of  the 
horses,  which  had  all  been  thrown  overboard.  Glyn- 
dwr  in  the  meantime  had  heard  that  the  French  were 
on  the  sea,  and,  moving  down  into  Pembrokeshire 
with  10,000  men,  he  joined  forces  with  them  almost 
immediately  upon  their  landing. 

There  was  no  time  to  be  lost  and  the  united  armies 
turned   first  to  Haverford-west,  an   Anglo-Flemish 


256  Owen  Glyndwr  [i405 

centre  of  some  importance.  The  town  was  soon 
taken  and  burnt,  but  the  great  Norman  castle  proved 
altogether  too  hard  a  task  even  for  so  large  a  force. 
So,  falling  back,  Glyndwr  and  his  French  allies 
marched  to  Tenby,  laying  waste  the  Flemish  settle- 
ments, though  they  had  to  look  helplessly  on  while 
an  English  fleet  attacked  the  French  ships  and  de- 
stroyed fifteen  of  them.  Thence  under  Glyndwr's 
guidance  the  army  moved  on  to  Carmarthen,  which 
surrendered  without  much  resistance.  Glamorgan, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  fallen  away  from  its 
allegiance  to  the  Welsh  cause,  so  Glyndwr  took  it  on 
his  route  towards  England  and  gave  the  backsliders 
of  that  unfortunate  county  some  experience  of  his 
relentless  methods.  Passing  on  thence  through 
Herefordshire  in  a  fashion  of  which  we  know  nothing 
but  may  readily  guess,  the  allied  forces  entered 
Worcestershire  and  arrived  within  nine  miles  of  the 
capital  of  that  county  just  as  King  Henry  reached 
it. 

As  early  as  the  beginning  of  July,  when  the  King 
first  heard  of  the  intended  French  invasion,  he  had 
issued  proclamation  to  the  sheriffs  of  several  coun- 
ties to  be  in  readiness  with  their  forces,  and  it  was 
these  that  must  now  have  been  his  chief  support  at 
Worcester.  On  his  way  south  he  had  issued  another 
summons  to  the  forces  of  Herefordshire  and  the  lower 
counties  to  muster  at  the  city  of  Hereford.  It  was 
now  about  the  middle  of  August,  and  without  more 
delay  he  marched  his  army  out  from  Worcester  to 
meet  the  formidable  combination  that  had  penetrated 
so  far  into  his  kingdom. 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  257 

The  spot  where  Glyndwr  and  Hugueville  en- 
camped their  forces  was  an  old  British  fort  on  the 
summit  of  Woodbury  hill  and  is  still  known  as 
Owen's  camp.  Pennant  visited  it  and  made  care- 
ful notes  and  observations.  It  covers,  he  says, 
about  twenty-seven  acres  and  is  surrounded  by 
a  single  foss.  The  hill  itself  is  lofty  and  of  an  oblong 
form.  One  end  is  connected  with  the  Abberly  hills, 
which,  with  this  one  of  Woodbury,  form  a  crescent, 
the  hollow  between  constituting  an  ideal  arena  for  a 
battle-ground. 

When  the  King  arrived  he  proceeded  to  take  up 
his  position  on  the  northern  ridge,  and  the  two  armies 
lay  for  eight  days,  both  so  admirably  placed  that  each 
feared  to  give  advantage  to  the  other  by  moving  out 
and  risking  so  great  a  stake  in  the  gage  of  battle. 
Skirmishing,  however,  went  on  daily  in  the  valley  be- 
low. The  brave  spirits  of  either  army  descended  into 
the  arena  and  performed  individual  deeds  of  arms 
between  and  in  sight  of  both  camps.  "  They  had 
a  fine  slope,"  says  Pennant,  "  to  run  down,  the 
Welsh  having  a  hollowed  way  as  if  formed  especially 
for  the  purpose." 

Some  four  or  five  hundred  men  in  all  fell  during 
this  week  of  desultory  skirmishing,  including  some 
French  knights  of  note.  One  might  well  have 
looked,  at  this  crisis,  for  some  decisive  and  fierce 
fight  like  that  of  Shrewsbury,  which  should  live  in 
history.  Never  had  Glyndwr  penetrated  so  far  into 
Saxon  territory ;  never  before  had  ten  thousand 
Welshmen  threatened  Worcester  as  invaders ;  never 
since  England  had  become  a  united  country  had  a 
17 


258  Owen  Glyndwr  [i405 

hostile  French  army  sat  down  in  its  very  heart  as 
this  one  was  now  doing. 

But  the  King  at  any  rate  showed  his  wisdom  in 
not  venturing  on  a  battle.  He  had  ample  provisions 
behind  him  and  was  gathering  strength.  Glyndwr 
and  Hugueville,  on  the  other  hand,  had  wasted  the 
country  on  their  route,  and  they  were  running  short 
of  food.  Yet  even  if  Glyndwr  had  struck  at  once 
and  gained  a  victory,  it  is  quite  certain  that  with  his 
friends  in  the  North  already  crushed  he  would  not 
have  been  able  with  what  was  left  of  his  fifteen 
thousand  or  so  Welsh  and  French,  to  affect  in  any 
way  the  fortunes  of  England  by  merely  capturing 
Worcester,  and  would  have  himself  been  in  immin- 
ent danger.  Moreover,  as  the  King  clung  to  the 
top  of  the  hill  and  had  perhaps  nearly  as  many  men 
with  him  as  the  enemy,  the  risk  attending  an  attack 
would  have  been  still  greater.  The  Franco-Welsh 
army,  too,  had  a  good  deal  of  booty  among  them, 
which  to  most  of  the  individuals  composing  it  was 
probably  a  leading  item  for  consideration. 

When  his  enemies  struck  their  camp  and  com- 
menced their  backward  march  to  Wales,  the  King 
essayed  to  follow  them,  and  found  it  no  easy  task  in 
a  region  already  twice  traversed  by  a  hungry  and 
hostile  army.  He  took  some  provisions  with  him, 
but  after  eighteen  waggon-loads  of  these  had  been 
captured  by  Glyndwr's  hungry  soldiers  he  gave  up 
his  barren  attempts  to  harass  their  rapid  march. 
Hall's  account  of  this  campaign  does  not  tally  with 
the  account  of  the  invaders,  as  is  perhaps  natural, 
and  he  probably  drew  to  some  extent  on  his  imagin- 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  259 

ation  when  he  described   Henry's  pursuit  in  such 
curiously  quaint  language : 

"  From  hills  to  dales,"  he  writes,  "  from  dales  to 
woodes,  from  woodes  to  marshes,  and  yet  he  could 
never  have  them  at  an  advantage.  A  worlde  it  was  to 
see  his  quotidian  removings,  his  busy  and  painful  wan- 
derings, his  troublesome  and  uncertayne  abiding,  his 
continual  mocian,  his  daily  peregrenacion  in  the  desert 
fells  and  craggy  mountains  of  that  barrenne  infertile  and 
depopulate  country." 

But  the  Franco- Welsh  army  was  soon  deep  in  the 
heart  of  Wales,  and  Henry,  having  given  up  the 
pursuit  in  much  more  summary  fashion  than  Hall 
would  have  us  believe  in  the  face  of  dates,  was  con- 
centrating his  forces  at  Hereford.  Prince  Henry 
had  already  done  something  to  harass  the  march  of 
the  Welsh  through  Monmouth.  Sir  John  Grendor 
was  negotiating  with  Owen's  supporters  in  the  valley 
of  the  Usk.  Sir  John  Berkrolles  still  held  the  great 
castle  of  Coity  with  the  utmost  difficulty,  and  the 
Bristol  captains  who  had  enabled  Harlech  to  hold 
out  so  long  were  now  ordered  down  the  Bristol 
channel  with  supplies  for  the  still  beleaguered  garri- 
sons of  South  Wales. 

On  September  loth  Henry  with  a  large  force  com- 
menced his  fifth  invasion  of  Wales.  The  reader, 
wearied  no  doubt  by  the  chronicle  of  these  futile  en- 
deavours, might  now  well  look  for  some  tangible 
result,  some  crushing  blow.  There  is  nothing,  how- 
ever, but  the  old,  old  story  to  tell.  The  King  en- 
tered  Glamorgan   and  succeeded   in   relieving  the 


26o  Owen  Glyndwr  [1405 

single  castle  of  Coity ;  he  then  turned  tail,  and  the 
Welsh  at  once,  as  in  every  case  but  one,  when  there 
was  no  need  for  it,  sprang  upon  his  back.  Besides 
his  spears  and  arrows  Glyndwr  once  more 
worked  with  his  magic  wand.  The  heavens  de- 
scended and  the  floods  came  and  soaked  and  buffeted 
the  hapless  monarch  and  his  still  more  wretched  and 
ill-provisioned  troops.  Every  river  ran  bank-high 
and  every  brook  was  in  flood ;  and  the  clumsy  carts 
that  carried  the  commissariat  were  captured  by 
Glyndwr's  men  or  whirled  away  in  the  rapids.  The 
old  story  of  1402  was  repeated  in  the  autumn  of 
1405.  The  royal  army  on  their  return  had  to  cross 
the  valley  of  the  Rhondda,  where  the  national  cause, 
though  more  than  once  suppressed,  was  always  vigor- 
ous and  responded  to  its  famous  war-cry,  "  Cadwgan, 
whet  thy  battle-axe."  This  valley  runs  from  the  west- 
ward into  theTaff  at  Pontypridd  and  is  now  astir  with 
the  hum  of  grimy  industry  and  bright  with  the  flare 
of  forges.  It  was  then  a  hive  of  fighting  stock-farm- 
ers fired  with  a  great  enthusiasm  for  Glyndwr. 

"There  was  a  certain  Cadwgan,"  says  the  old  lolo 
manuscript  already  quoted,  *'  who  was  a  leader  among 
the  men  of  the  valley  and  a  doughty  henchman  of 
Glyndwr,  and  when  it  became  necessary  for  him  to  call 
the  people  to  battle  he  used  to  march  up  and  down  the 
valley  whetting  his  axe.  So  when  Owen  came  to  Glyn 
Rhondda  he  would  say,  '  Cadwgan,  whet  thy  battle-axe,' 
and  the  moment  he  was  heard  to  do  so  all  living  persons 
collected  about  him  in  military  array  and  from  that  day 
to  this  the  battle  shout  of  Glyn  Rhondda  has  been 
'  Cadwgan,  whet  thy  battle-axe.'  " 


1405]  Welsh  Reverses  261 

By  October  1st  the  King  was  back  at  Worcester. 
It  would  be  of  little  profit  to  relate  the  various 
orders  he  gave  for  resisting  and  pacifying  the  Welsh, 
nor  yet  to  give  the  names  of  the  various  Lord 
Marchers  whom  he  ordered  to  proceed  upon  exped- 
itions with  small  forces,  where  he  himself  had 
failed  with  large  ones.  One  is  not  surprised  to 
find  that  Owen  and  his  French  allies  had  Wales 
for  the  most  part  to  themselves  and  were  unmolested 
during  the  winter.  The  greater  part  of  the  French, 
however,  returned  home  again  before  Christmas, 
some  seventeen  hundred  remaining,  for  whom 
Glyndwr  found  comfortable  quarters.  He  seems  to 
have  been  greatly  disappointed  at  the  departure  of 
the  others,  as  well  as  at  the  conduct  of  those  who  re- 
mained. The  alliance,  indeed,  proved  unsatisfactory 
to  both  parties.  The  French  individually  counted  on 
booty  as  their  reward,  whereas  they  found  for  the 
most  part  a  plundered  and  ravaged  country.  It  is 
possible,  too,  there  may  have  been  some  racial  friction 
between  the  Welsh  and  their  French  allies.  At  any 
rate  the  latter,  as  one  of  their  old  chroniclers  re- 
marks, did  not  do  much  bragging  when  they  got 
home  to  Brittany,  nor  did  those  who  remained  in 
Wales  conduct  themselves  by  any  means  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  Glyndwr,  but  were  altogether  too  much 
given  up  to  thoughts  of  plundering  their  friends. 
Upon  the  whole  their  motives  were  too  obvious  and 
the  prospect  of  further  assistance  from  them  not 
very  cheering. 

Western  Pembroke  in  the  meantime  (Little  Eng^ 
land  beyond  Wales),  finding  itself  cut  off  from  all 


262  Owen  Glyndwr  [i405 

assistance,  in  spite  of  the  girdle  of  splendid  castles  by 
which  it  was  protected,  began  to  find  Glyndwr  at 
last  too  nnuch  for  it.  The  earldom  was  in  abeyance 
and  Sir  Francis  A'  Court  was  governor  of  the  county 
and  known  as  Lord  of  Pembroke.  He  called  to- 
gether the  representatives  of  the  district,  who 
solemnly  agreed  to  pay  Glyndwr  the  sum  of  £200 
for  a  truce  to  last  until  the  following  May.  So 
Pembroke,  having  humbled  itself  and  in  so  doing 
having  humbled  England,  which  had  thus  failed  it 
in  its  hour  of  need,  had  peace.  And  Glyndwr,  still 
supreme,  but  not  without  some  cause  for  depression, 
returned  to  Harlech  to  take  counsel  with  his  friends 
and  prepare  for  a  year  that  promised  to  be  excep- 
tionally fruitful  of  good  or  ill. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRIPARTITE  INDENTURE 
1406 

DURING  the  lull  of  this  winter  of  1405-6  mes- 
sengers were  going  backwards  and  forwards 
between  Harlech  and  Scotland. 
The  chief  event  of  the  early  part  of  the  new  year 
was  the  signing  of  that  Tripartite  Indenture  which  I 
have  already  spoken  of  as  being  so  often  attrib- 
uted to  the  period  before  the  battle  of  Shrewsbury. 
Pity,  for  the  sake  of  dramatic  effect,  that  it  was  not, 
and  as  Shakespeare  painted  it !  Hotspur  was  then 
alive  and  the  power  of  the  Percys  at  its  height, 
while  Mortimer  had  not  tarnished  the  splendour  of 
his  house  and  dimmed  such  measure  of  reputation  as 
he  himself  enjoyed,  by  sinking  his  individuality  in 
that  of  his  wife's  strenuous  father.  Glyndwr  alone 
wa^  greater  than  he  had  then  been,  though  the  zenith 
of  his  fortunes  had  been  reached  and  he  was  soon  to 
commence  that  long,  hopeless  struggle  against  fate 
and  overwhelming  odds  that  has  caused  men  to  for- 
get the  ravager  in  the  fortitude  of  the  hero. 

Northumberland  had  outworn,  as  we  have  seen, 
263 


264  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

the  King's  marvellous  forbearance,  and  was  now  a 
fugitive  in  Scotland  with  Bardolph,  whose  estates, 
like  his  own,  had  been  confiscated,  and  whose 
person,  like  Northumberland's,  was  urgently  wanted 
by  Henry.  The  old  Earl  had  lost  his  nerve  and  had 
taken  alarm  at  certain  indications  on  the  part  of  the 
Scots  that  they  would  not  object  to  hand  him  over 
to  Henry  in  exchange  for  the  doughty  Lord  Douglas 
who  had  been  held  in  honourable  captivity  since  the 
battle  of  Shrewsbury.  Fearing  this  he  and  Bardolph 
took  ship  from  the  western  coast  for  France.  But 
either  by  prior  agreement  with  Glyndwr  or  on  their 
own  initiative  they  rounded  the  stormy  capes  of 
Lleyn  and,  turning  their  ships'  prows  shorewards, 
landed  in  the  sandy  and  sequestered  cove  of 
Aberdaron. 

Aberdaron  is  to  this  day  the  Ultima  Thule  of  Wales. 
It  was  then  a  remote  spot  indeed,  though  in  times 
long  gone  by,  when  pilgrims  crept  in  thousands  from 
shrine  to  shrine  along  the  coasts  of  Lleyn  to  the  great 
abbey,  ''The  Rome  of  the  Welsh,"  on  Bardsey 
Island,  it  had  been  famous  enough.  It  was  not  alone 
its  remoteness  that  recommended  this  lonely  outpost, 
flung  out  so  far  into  the  Irish  Sea,  to  the  two  fugi- 
tives and  irrepressible  conspirators.  David  Daron, 
Dean  of  Bangor,  a  friend  of  Glyndwr,  had  been  with 
them  in  the  North  as  one  of  his  commissioners  and 
seems  to  have  remained  longer  than  his  colleagues 
with  Percy.  At  any  rate  he  was  Lord  of  the  Manor 
of  Aberdaron  and  had  a  house  there  to  which  he  wel- 
comed his  two  English  friends.  The  object  of  the 
latter  was  not  merely  to  fly  to  France  but  to  stir  up 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  265 

its  King  to  renewed  efforts  against  Henry.  Glyndwr, 
too,  as  we  shall  see,  had  been  sending  messengers  to 
France,  and  the  impending  meeting  at  Aberdaron 
might  be  fruitful  of  great  results. 

It  is  an  easy  run  by  sea  of  twenty  miles  or  so  from 
Harlech  to  the  farther  capes  of  Lleyn  where  the  ro- 
mantic island  of  Bardsey,  sanctified  by  the  bones  of  its 
twenty  thousand  saints,  lifts  its  head  to  an  imposing 
height  above  the  waves.  To  Aberdaron,  just  short  of 
the  farthest  point  of  the  mainland,  then  came  Glyn- 
dwr, bringing  with  him  Mortimer  and  no  doubt 
others  of  his  court.  It  was  on  February  28,  1406, 
that  the  meeting  took  place  when  the  somewhat 
notable  Indenture  of  Agreement  was  signed  by  the 
three  contracting  parties.  The  date  of  this  proceed- 
ing has  been  by  no  means  undisputed,  but  of  all 
moments  this  particular  one  seems  the  most  likely 
and  has  the  sanction  of  the  most  recent  and  exhaust- 
ive historians  of  the  period. 

The  bards  had  been  prolific  and  reminiscent  during 
this  quiet  winter,  and  there  seemed  special  call  as 
well  as  scope  for  their  songs  and  forecasts.  The 
ancient  prophecies  of  Merlin  that  were  never  allowed 
to  slumber,  regarding  the  future  of  Britain  and  the 
Welsh  race,  were  now  heard  as  loudly  as  they  had 
been  before  the  battle  of  Shrewsbury,  interpreted  in 
various  ways  in  uncouth  and  strange  metaphor. 
Henry  was  the  "  mouldwharp  cursed  of  God's  own 
mouth."  A  dragon  would  come  from  the  north  and 
with  him  a  wolf  from  the  west,  whose  tails  would  be 
tied  together.  Fearful  things  would  happen  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Thames  and  its  channel  would  be 


266  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

choked  with  corpses.  The  rivers  of  England  would 
run  with  blood.  The  "  mouldwharp  "  would  then  be 
hunted  out  of  the  country  by  the  dragon,  the  lion,  and 
the  wolf,  or,  in  other  words,  by  Glyndwr,  Percy,  and 
Mortimer.  He  would  then  be  drowned  and  his  king- 
dom divided  between  his  three  triumphant  foes. 

Who  framed  the  Indenture  is  not  known  ;  perhaps 
Glyndwr  himself,  since  he  had  been  a  barrister  in 
his  youth  and  was  certainly  a  ready  penman.  The 
chronicler  tells  us  that  the  contracting  parties  swore 
fidelity  to  each  other  upon  the  gospels  before  putting 
their  names  to  the  articles,  and  then  proceeds  to  give 
what  purports  to  be  the  full  text  of  the  latter  in  Latin, 
of  which  the  following  is  a  translation. 

"  This  year  the  Earl  of  Northumberland  made  a  league 
and  covenant  and  friendship  with  Owyn  Glyndwr  and 
Edmund  Mortimer,  son  of  the  late  Earl  of  March,  in  cer- 
tain articles  of  the  form  and  tenor  following  :  In  the  first 
place  that  these  Lords,  Owyn,  the  Earl,  and  Edmund 
shall  henceforth  be  mutually  joined,  confederate,  united 
and  bound  by  the  bond  of  a  true  league  and  true  friend- 
ship and  sure  and  good  union.  Again  that  every  one  of 
these  Lords  shall  will  and  pursue,  and  also  procure,  the 
honour  and  welfare  of  one  another  ;  and  shall  in  good 
faith,  hinder  any  losses  and  distresses  which  shall  come 
to  his  knowledge,  by  anyone  whatsoever  intended  to  be 
inflicted  on  either  of  them.  Every  one  also  of  them  shall 
act  and  do  with  another  all  and  every  of  those  things, 
which  ought  to  be  done  by  good  true  and  faithful  friends 
to  good,  true  and  faithful  friends,  laying  aside  all  deceit 
and  fraud.  Also,  if  ever  any  of  the  said  Lords  shall  know 
and  learn  of  any  loss  or  damage  intended  against  another 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  267 

by  any  persons  whatsoever,  he  shall  signify  it  to  the  others 
as  speedily  as  possible,  and  assist  them  in  that  particular, 
that  each  may  take  such  measures  as  may  seem  good 
against  such  malicious  purposes  ;  and  they  shall  be  anx- 
ious to  prevent  such  injuries  in  good  faith;  also  they  shall 
assist  each  other  to  the  utmost  of  their  power  in  the  time 
of  necessity.  Also  if  by  God's  appointment  it  should  ap- 
pear to  the  said  Lords  in  process  of  time  that  they  are 
the  same  persons  of  whom  the  Prophet  speaks,  between 
whom  the  Government  of  the  Greater  Britain  ought  to  be 
divided  and  parted,  then  they  and  every  one  of  them 
shall  labour  to  their  utmost  to  bring  this  effectually  to  be 
accomplished.  Each  of  them,  also,  shall  be  content 
with  that  portion  of  the  kingdom  aforesaid,  limited  as  be- 
low, without  further  exaction  or  superiority  ;  yea,  each 
of  them  in  such  proportion  assigned  to  him  shall  enjoy 
liberty.  Also  between  the  same  Lords  it  is  unanimously 
covenanted  and  agreed  that  the  said  Owyn  and  his  heirs 
shall  have  the  whole  of  Cambria  or  Wales,  by  the  bord- 
ers, limits  and  boundaries  underwritten  divided  from 
Loegira,  which  is  commonly  called  England ;  namely 
from  the  Severn  Sea  as  the  river  Severn  leads  from  the 
sea,  going  down  to  the  north  gate  of  the  city  of  Worces- 
ter ;  and  from  that  gate  straight  to  the  Ash  tree,  com- 
monly called  in  the  Cambrian  or  Welsh  language  Owen 
Margion,  which  grows  on  the  highway  from  Bridgenorth 
to  Kynvar ;  thence  by  the  highway  direct,  which  is 
usually  called  the  old  or  ancient  way,  to  the  head  or 
source  of  the  river  Trent  :  thence  to  the  head  or  source 
of  the  river  Mense  ;  thence  as  that  river  leads  to  the  sea^ 
going  down  within  the  borders,  limits  and  boundaries 
above  written.  And  the  aforesaid  Earl  of  Northumber- 
land shall  have  for  himself  and  his  heirs  the  counties 
below  written,  namely,  Northumberland,  Westmoreland, 


268  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

Lancashire,  York,  Lincoln,  Nottingham,  Derby,  Stafford, 
Leicester,  Northampton,  Warwick,  and  Norfolk.  And 
the  Lord  Edmund  shall  have  all  the  rest  of  the  whole  of 
England,  entirely  to  him  and  his  heirs.  Also  should  any 
battle,  riot  or  discord  fall  out  between  two  of  the  said 
Lords  (  may  it  never  be  )  then  the  third  of  the  said  Lords, 
calling  to  himself  good  and  faithful  counsel,  shall  duly 
rectify  such  discord,  riot  and  battle  ;  whose  approval  or 
sentence  the  discordant  parties  shall  be  held  bound  to 
obey.  They  shall  also  be  faithful  to  defend  the  king- 
dom against  all  men  ;  saving  the  oak  on  the  part  of  the 
said  Owyn  given  to  the  most  illustrious  Prince  Charles  by 
the  Grace  of  God  King  of  the  French,  in  the  league  and 
covenant  between  them  made.  And  that  the  same  be, 
all  and  singular,  well  and  faithfully  observed,  the  said 
Lords  Owyn,  the  Earl,  and  Edmund,  by  the  holy  body 
of  the  Lord  which  they  now  steadfastly  look  upon  and 
by  the  holy  gospels  of  God  by  them  now  bodily  touched, 
have  sworn  to  observe  the  premises  all  and  singular  to 
their  utmost,  inviolably  ;  and  have  caused  their  seals  to 
be  mutually  affixed  thereto." 

Little,  however,  was  to  come  of  all  this.  Earl 
Percy  and  Bardolph,  after  spending  some  two  years 
partly  under  Glyndwr's  protection  and  partly  in 
France,  found  their  way  back  to  Scotland  and  in  the 
spring  of  1408  played  their  last  stake.  Their  fatuous 
attempt  with  a  small  and  ill -disciplined  force  of 
countrymen  to  overturn  Henry's  throne  was  easily 
defeated  at  Bramham  Moor  in  Yorkshire  by  the 
sheriff  of  that  county,  and  their  heads  and  limbs  were 
suspended  from  the  gateways  of  various  English 
cities  as  a  testimony  to  the  dismal  failure  which  the 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  269 

great  house  of  Percy  had  made  of  its  persistent 
efforts  to  depose  the  King  it  had  created. 

Glyndwr  for  his  part  was  neither  now,  nor  yet  to 
be  at  any  future  time,  in  a  position  to  help  his 
friends  outside  Wales.  His  power  had  passed  its 
zenith,  though  its  decline  is  not  marked  by  any 
special  incidents  in  this  year  1406.  Much  the  most 
interesting  event  to  be  noted  by  the  student  of 
his  career  and  period,  at  this  turning-point  of  his 
fortunes,  is  a  letter  he  wrote  to  the  King  of 
France,  almost  immediately  after  his  return  from  the 
rendezvous  with  Northumberland  and  Bardolph. 
His  headquarters  in  the  early  spring  of  this  year 
seem  to  have  been  at  Machynlleth,  for  the  letter  in 
question  was  written  from  Pennal,  a  village  about 
four  miles  from  this  ancient  outpost  of  Powys.  Before 
touching,  however,  on  the  main  object  of  this  memor- 
able communication,  it  will  be  well  to  recall  the  fact 
that  the  remnants  of  the  French  invaders  of  the  pre- 
vious year  were  just  leaving  Wales,  to  the  great  re- 
lief of  Owen.  But  his  disappointment  at  the  nature 
of  the  help  the  French  King  had  sent  on  this 
occasion  by  no  means  discouraged  him  from  looking 
in  the  same  direction  for  more  effectual  support. 

It  was  now  the  period  of  the  Papal  Schism.  For 
nearly  thirty  years  there  had  been  two  rival  popes, 
the  one  at  Rome,  the  other  at  Avignon,  and  Catholic 
Europe  was  divided  into  two  camps,  the  countries 
who  adhered  to  the  one  spiritual  chief  professing  to 
regard  the  followers  of  the  other  as  heretics  unfit  to 
breathe  the  air  of  this  world  and  without  hope  of  par- 
don in  the  next.     The  Christian  Church  was  shaken 


270  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

to  its  foundations  and  degenerated  into  an  arena  of 
venomous  strife.  Nor  was  this  only  a  war  of  words, 
beliefs,  interdicts,  and  sacerdotal  fulminations,  for 
200,000  lives  are  said  to  have  been  lost  over  this 
squabble  for  the  vicarship  of  Christ.  Pious  men  de- 
plored the  lamentable  state  to  which  those  who 
should  have  been  the  upholders  of  religion  had  re- 
duced it.  France,  of  course,  in  common  with  Spain, 
maintained  the  cause  of  her  own  Pope.  England  held 
to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  but  even  apart  from  the  Lol- 
lard element,  which  was  now  considerable,  regarded 
the  wearisome  dispute  with  a  large  measure  of  con- 
temptuous indifference.  Scotland  as  a  matter  of 
course  took  the  opposite  side  to  England.  There  was 
no  sentiment  about  "  the  island  "  among  the  Anglo- 
Normans  who  lived  north  of  the  Tweed  and  who 
had  resisted  successfully  every  attempt  of  their  kins- 
men on  the  south  of  it  to  include  them  in  their 
scheme  of  government.  They  were  all  aliens  alike 
so  far  as  those  who  had  power  were  concerned,  and 
would  not  have  understood,  probably,  that  strange 
sort  of  lingering  loyalty  to  the  soil  that  in  spite  of 
everything  still  survived  among  the  remnant  of  the 
Britons.  Glyndwr,  of  course,  had  acted  directly 
against  this  ancient  theory,  but  mercenary  soldiers 
were  now  such  a  feature  of  military  life  that  the  im- 
portation of  these  Frenchmen  was  perhaps  of  less 
significance,  more  particularly  as  foreign  troops  were 
continually  serving  in  England  in  the  pay  of  various 
kings.  Now,  however,  as  a  bait  to  the  French  King 
and  to  quicken  his  interest  in  his  cause,  Glyndwr 
offered  to  take  Wales  over  to  the  allegiance  of  the 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  271 

Avignon  Pope.  In  this  Pennal  letter  Owen  dwells 
at  some  length  upon  the  details  of  the  elections  of  the 
rival  popes  which  the  French  King  himself  had  sent 
over  to  him,  and  he  excuses  himself  for  following  the 
English  lead  in  the  past  and  adhering  to  the  Roman 
Pontiff  on  the  score  of  not  having  hitherto  been 
properly  informed  regarding  the  rights  and  wrongs  of 
this  same  election.  He  recapitulates  the  promises 
made  to  him  by  the  King  if  he  would  acknowledge 
Benedict  XIII.  and  not  his  rival,  Gregory  XII. 

After  holding  a  council  of  the  "  princes  of  his 
race,"  prelates,  and  other  clergy  he  had  decided  to 
acknowledge  the  Avignon  Pope.  He  begs  the  King  of 
France,  as  interested  in  the  well-being  of  the  Church 
of  Wales,  to  exert  his  influence  with  the  Pope  and 
prevail  upon  him  to  grant  certain  favours  which  he 
proceeds  to  enumerate : 

In  the  first  place,  that  all  ecclesiastical  censures 
pronounced  either  by  the  late  Clement  or  Benedict 
against  Wales  or  himself  or  his  subjects  should  be 
cancelled.  Furthermore  that  they  should  be  released 
from  the  obligation  of  all  oaths  taken  to  the  so-called 
Urban  and  Boniface  lately  deceased  and  to  their  sup- 
porters. That  Benedict  should  ratify  ordinations 
and  appointments  to  benefices  and  titles  {or dines 
collates  titulos)  held  or  given  by  prelates,  dispens- 
ations, and  ofificial  acts  of  notaries,  "involving 
jeopardy  of  souls  or  hurt  to  us  and  our  subjects  from 
the  time  of  Gregory  XL"  Owen  urges  that  Menevia 
(St.  Davids)  should  be  restored  to  its  original  con- 
dition as  a  Metropolitan  church,  which  it  held  from 
the   time  of  that  saint  himself,  its  archbishop  and 


272  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

confessor,  and  under  twenty-four  archbishops  after 
him,  whose  names,  beginning  with  Clind  and  end- 
ing with  the  significantly  Anglo-Saxon  patronymic 
of  Thompson,  are  herein  set  forth.  Formerly,  the 
writer  goes  on  to  say,  St.  Davids  had  under  it 
the  suffragan  sees  of  Exeter,  Bath,  Hereford, 
Worcester,  Leicester  (now  transferred  to  Coventry), 
Lichfield,  St.  Asaph,  Bangor,  Llandaff,  and  should 
rightly  have  them  still,  but  the  Saxon  barbarians 
subordinated  them  to  Canterbury.  In  language 
that  in  later  centuries  was  to  be  so  often  and  so  vainly 
repeated,  he  represents  that  none  but  Welsh- 
speaking  clergy  should  be  appointed,  from  the 
metropolitan  down  to  the  curate.  He  requests 
also  that  all  grants  of  Welsh  parish  churches  to 
English  monasteries  or  colleges  should  be  annulled 
and  that  the  rightful  patrons  should  be  compelled  to 
present  fit  and  proper  persons  to  ordinaries,  that 
freedom  should  be  granted  to  himself  and  his  heirs 
for  their  chapel,  and  all  the  privileges,  immunities, 
and  exemptions  which  it  enjoyed  under  their  prede- 
cessors. Curiously  significant,  too,  and  suggestive,  is 
the  point  he  makes  of  liberty  to  found  two  uni- 
versities, one  for  North  and  one  for  South  Wales. 
Indeed  this  is  justly  regarded  as  one  of  many 
bits  of  evidence  that  Owen  was  not  merely  a  battle- 
field hero,  an  avenging  patriot,  an  enemy  of  tyrants, 
but  that  he  possessed  the  art  of  constructive  states- 
manship had  he  been  given  the  opportunity  to  prove 
it.  The  educational  zeal  that  does  so  much  honour 
to  modern  Wales  is  fond  of  pointing  to  Glyndwr  as 
the  original  mover  in  that  matter  of  a  Welsh  national 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  273 

university  which  has  so  recently  been  brought  to  a 
successful  issue.  King  Henry  in  this  letter  is  natur- 
ally an  object  of  special  invective,  and  Owen  prays 
that  Benedict  will  sanction  a  crusade  in  the  cus- 
tomary form  against  the  usurper  Henry  of  Lancaster 
for  burning  down  churches  and  cathedrals,  and  for 
beheading,  hanging,  and  quartering  Welsh  clergy, 
including  mendicant  friars,  and  for  being  a  schis- 
matic. The  writer  would  appear  by  this  to  have 
unladen  his  conscience  of  the  burden  of  the  smoking 
ruins  of  Bangor  and  St.  Asaph  and  of  many,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  less  noteworthy  edifices.  Indeed,  we  find 
him  earlier  in  his  career  excusing  himself  for  these 
sacrilegious  deeds  and  putting  the  onus  of  them  on 
the  uncontrollable  fury  of  his  followers.  But  the  ver- 
dict of  posterity  has  in  no  way  been  shaken  by  these 
lame  apologies.  Finally  he  asks  the  French  King 
to  make  interest  with  Benedict  for  plenary  forgive- 
ness for  his  sins  and  those  of  his  heirs,  his  subjects, 
and  his  men  of  whatsoever  nation,  provided  they  are 
orthodox,  for  the  whole  duration  of  the  war  with 
Henry  of  Lancaster.  * 

This  document,  a  transcript  of  which  is  in  the 
Record  Ofifice,  is  preserved  at  Paris  amongthe  French 
government  archives  and  has  attached  to  it  by  a 
double  string  an  imperfect  yellow  seal,  bearing  the 
inscription,  "  Owenus  Dei  Gratia  princeps  Walliae." 

*  This  letter,  which  covers  many  folio  pages,  has  never  been  printed. 

It  is  in  indifferent  Latin  with  the  usual  abbreviations.     In  the  matter 

of  making  and  elucidating  copies  of  it  at  the  Record  Office,  Mr. 

Hubert  Hall  gave  me  some  valuable  assistance,  as  also  did  Mr.  C. 

M.  Bull. 
18 


2  74  Owen  Glyndwr  [i406 

It  is  dated  the  last  day  of  March  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1406  and  **the  sixth  of  our  reign."  The  orig- 
inal is  endorsed  with  a  note  in  Latin  to  the  effect 
that  the  above  is  the  letter  in  which  Owen,  Prince 
of  Wales,  acknowledged  obedience  to  ''  our  Pope." 

This  year  was  not  a  stirring  one  in  Wales.  France, 
to  whom  Owen  was  appealing,  was  in  no  condition, 
or  at  any  rate  in  no  mood,  to  try  a  serious  fall  with 
England.  The  policy  of  pin-pricks,  to  adapt  a 
modern  term  to  the  more  strenuous  form  of  annoy- 
ance in  practice  in  those  times,  had  been  pursued 
with  tolerable  consistency  since  the  first  year  of 
Henry's  reign,  and  the  most  Christian  King  had  never 
yet  recognised  his  rival  of  England  as  a  brother 
monarch.  Richard  the  Second's  child-Queen  and 
widow,  Isabel,  had,  after  much  haggling,  been  restored 
by  Henry  to  France,  but  that  portion  of  her  dower 
which,  according  to  her  marriage  settlement,  should 
have  been  returned  with  her,  was  unobtainable.  She 
was  married  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans's  eldest  son,  aged 
eleven,  the  greater  portion  of  her  dower  being  a  Hen 
on  Henry  of  England  for  the  unpaid  balance  of  the 
sum  above  alluded  to,  an  indifferent  security.  In- 
ternational combats  had  been  going  merrily  on  in 
the  Channel  and  piratical  descents  upon  either  coast 
were  frequent.  But  this,  of  course,  was  not  formal 
war,  though  a  French  invasion  of  England  had  been 
one  of  the  chief  nightmares  of  Henry's  stormy 
reign.  Internal  troubles  in  France,  however,  now 
began  somewhat  to  relax  the  strained  nature  of  the 
relationship  with  England,  and  Owen's  chances  of 
Gallic  help  grew  fainter.     His  son  Griffith,  or  Griffin, 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  275 

was  a  prisoner  in  Henry's  hands  ;  he  had  been  com- 
mitted to  the  Tower,  and  by  an  irony  of  fate  was 
under  the  special  charge  of  one  of  that  powerful 
family  to  whom  his  father's  old  captive,  Reginald 
Grey  of  Ruthin,  belonged.  This  gentleman,  Lord 
de  Grey  of  Cedmore,  so  the  Issue  Rolls  of  the  reign 
inform  us,  was  paid  the  sum  of  three  and  fourpence 
a  day  for  Griffin,  son  of  Owen  de  Glendowdy,  and 
Owen  ap  Griffith  ap  Richard,  committed  to  his  cus- 
tody. Another  companion  in  captivity  for  part  of 
the  time,  of  this  **  cub  of  the  wolfe  from  the  west," 
strange  to  say,  was  the  boy-king  of  Scotland,  who, 
like  most  monarchs  of  that  factious  and  ill-governed 
country,  was  probably  happier  even  under  such 
depressing  circumstances  than  if  he  were  at  large 
in  his  own  country,  and  his  life  most  certainly  was 
much  safer. 

The  Rolls  during  all  these  years  show  a  constant 
drain  on  the  exchequer  for  provisions  and  money 
and  sinews  of  war  for  the  beleaguered  Welsh  castles. 
Here  is  a  contract  made  with  certain  Bristol  merchants, 
mentioned  by  name,  for  sixty-six  pipes  of  honey, 
twelve  casks  of  wine,  four  casks  of  sour  wine,  fifty 
casks  of  wheat  flour,  and  eighty  quarters  of  salt  to 
be  carried  in  diverse  ships  by  sea  for  victualling  and 
providing  *'  the  King's  Kastles  of  Karnarvon, 
Hardelagh,  Lampadarn,  and  Cardigarn."  Here  again 
are  payments  to  certain  ''  Lords,  archers  and  men- 
at-arms  to  go  to  the  rescue  of  Coity  castle  in  Wales." 
The  rate  of  pay  allowed  to  the  soldiers  of  that  day 
for  Welsh  service  is  all  entered  in  these  old  records 
and  may  be  studied  by  the  curious  in  such  matters. 


276  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

"To  Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  wages  for  120  men-at- 
arms  and  350  archers  at  i2d.  and  6d.  per  day  for  one 
quarter  of  a  year  remaining  at  the  abbey  of  Stratflur  and 
keeping  and  defending  the  same  from  malice  of  those 
rebels  who  had  not  submitted  themselves  to  the  obedience 
of  the  Lord  the  King  and  to  ride  after  and  give  battle 
to  the  rebels  as  well  in  South  as  in  North  Wales 
;^666.i3.4."  Again,  in  the  same  year:  "To  Henry 
Prince  of  Wales,  for  wages  of  300  men-at-arms  and  600 
archers  and  canoniers  and  other  artificers  for  the  war 
who  lately  besieged  the  castle  of  Hardelagh  [Harlech]." 

From  the  latter  of  these  extracts,  which  are  quoted 
merely  as  types  of  innumerable  entries  of  a  like  kind, 
it  will  be  seen  that  cannons  were  used,  at  any  rate 
in  some  of  these  sieges,  and  it  is  fairly  safe  to  as- 
sume that  those  used  against  Glyndwr  were  the  first 
that  had  been  seen  in  Wales. 

As  the  year  1406  advanced,  the  star  of  Owen 
began  most  sensibly  to  wane.  He  was  still,  how- 
ever, keeping  up  the  forms  of  regal  state  along  the 
shores  of  Cardigan  Bay,  and  we  find  him  formally 
granting  pardon  to  one  of  his  subjects,  John  ap 
Howel,  at  Llanfair  near  Harlech.  The  instrument  is 
signed  **  per  ipsum  Princepem,"  and  upon  its  seal  is 
a  portrait  of  Owen  bareheaded  and  bearded,  seated 
on  a  throne-like  chair,  holding  a  globe  in  his  left  hand 
and  a  sceptre  in  his  right.  Among  the  witnesses  to 
the  instrument  are  Griffith  Yonge,  Owen's  Chan- 
cellor, Meredith,  his  younger  son,  Rhys  ap  Tudor, 
and  one  or  two  others.  There  is  much  that  is  hazy 
and  mysterious  about  the  events  of  this  year,  but  in 
most  parts  of  Wales  one  hears  little  or  nothing  of 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  277 

any  shifting  of  the  situation  or  any  loosening  of  the 
grip  that  Glyndwr's  party  had  upon  the  country. 
An  armed  neutrality  of  a  kind  probably  existed  be- 
tween the  Royalists  in  those  towns  and  castles  that 
had  not  fallen  and  the  purely  Celtic  population  in  the 
open  country,  which  had  long  before  1406  been 
purged  of  the  hostile  and  the  half-hearted  of  the 
native  race,  and  purged  as  we  know  by  means  of  a 
most  trenchant  and  merciless  kind. 

"  While  quarrels'  rage  did  nourish  ruinous  rack 

And  Owen  Glendore  set  bloodie  broils  abroach, 
Full  many  a  town  was  spoyled  and  put  to  sack 

And  clear  consumed  to  countries  foul  reproach, 
Great  castles  razed,  fair  buildings  burnt  to  dust. 
Such  revel  reigned  that  men  did  live  by  lust." 

Old  Churchyard,  who  wrote  these  lines,  lived  at 
any  rate  much  nearer  to  Glyndwr's  time  than  he  did 
to  ours,  and  reflects,  no  doubt,  the  feeling  of  the 
border  counties  and  of  no  small  number  of  Welsh- 
men themselves  who  were  involved  in  that  ruin  from 
which  Wales  did  not  recover  for  a  hundred  years. 
In  this  year  1406,  say  the  lolo  manuscripts,  **  Wales 
had  been  so  impoverished  that  even  the  means  of 
barely  sustaining  life  could  not  be  obtained  but  by 
rewards  of  the  King,"  referring,  doubtless,  to  the 
Norman  garrisons.  "  Glamorgan,"  says  the  same 
authority,  **  turned  Saxon  again  at  this  time  though 
two  years  later  in  1408  they  were  excited  to  com- 
motions by  the  extreme  oppressions  of  the  King's 
men, "and  when  Owen  returned  once  moreto  aid  them, 
their  chiefs  who  had  forsaken  his  cause  burnt  their 


278  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

barns  and  stack-yards,  rather  than  that  their  former 
leader  and  his  people  should  find  comfort  from  them. 
They  themselves  then  fled,  the  chronicler  continues, 
to  England  or  the  extremities  of  Wales,  where  in  the 
King's  sea-washed  castles  they  found  refuge  from 
Owen's  vengeance  and  were  "  supported  by  the  re- 
wards of  treason  and  strategem." 

More  serious,  however,  than  Glamorgan,  bristling 
as  it  was  with  Norman  interests  and  Norman  castles 
and  always  hard  to  hold  against  them,  the  powerful 
and  populous  island  of  Anglesey  in  the  north  and 
the  Vale  of  the  Towy  in  the  south  fell  away  from 
Glyndwr.  Sheer  weariness  of  the  strife,  coupled 
perhaps  with  want  of  provisions,  seems  to  have  been 
the  cause.  It  was  due  certainly  to  no  active 
operations  from  the  English  border.  Pardons  upon 
good  terms  were  continually  held  out  in  the  name  of 
Prince  Henry  and  the  King  throughout  the  whole 
struggle  to  any  who  would  sue  for  them,  always  ex- 
cepting Owen  and  his  chief  lieutenants,  though  even 
his  son,  as  we  have  seen,  was  well  treated  in  London. 
Anglesey  was  threatened  all  the  time  by  the  great 
castles  of  Conway,  Carnarvon,  and  Beaumaris,  which 
held  out  steadily  for  the  King.  Though  there  was 
no  fighting  in  the  island  it  is  not  unnatural  that 
Glyndwr's  supporters  from  thence,  being  cut  off  from 
their  homes,  which  were  liable  to  attacks  by  sea 
even  when  the  castles  were  impotent,  were  among 
the  first  to  give  in.  The  strength  of  the  following 
which  he  gathered  from  beyond  the  Menai  is  signifi- 
cant of  the  ardour  of  national  enthusiasm  in  this 
old  centre  of  the  Princes  of  Gwynedd,  no  less  than 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  279 

21 12  names  of  Anglesey  men  being  submitted  at 
one  time  in  this  year  for  pardon.  It  is  possible  that 
these  backsliders  did  not  all  go  home  empty-handed, 
but  that  a  fair  amount  of  plunder  from  the  sack  of 
Marcher  castles  and  the  ravage  of  Marcher  lands 
found  its  way  back  with  them.  However  that  may 
be,  a  royal  commission  was  opened  at  Beaumaris  on 
November  10th  of  this  year  1406  for  the  granting  of 
pardons  and  the  assessment  of  fines  to  be  paid  there- 
for. There  is  a  list  still  extant  in  manuscript  of  the 
whole  two  thousand-and-odd  names.  It  will  be 
sufficient  to  notice,  as  a  point  not  without  interest, 
that  the  six  commotes  of  Anglesey  paid  ^537.  7.  o. 
in  fines  upon  this  account.  The  goods  of  those  slain 
in  battle  were  forfeited  to  the  King,  to  be  redeemed 
at  prices  ranging  from  2s.  for  a  horse  to  4d.  for  a 
sheep.  A  few  were  outlawed,  among  whom  was 
David  Daron,  Dean  of  Bangor,  at  whose  house  the 
Tripartite  Convention  was  signed  early  in  the  year, 
while  Bifort,  Bishop  of  Bangor,  Owen's  agent  as  he 
might  almost  be  called,  together  with  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland,  was  naturally  excluded  from  pur- 
chasing his  pardon.  Henceforward  we  hear  little  of 
Anglesey  in  connection  with  Owen,  though  the  re- 
maining years  of  his  resistance  are  so  misty  in  their 
record  of  him  that  it  would  be  futile  to  attempt 
a  guess  at  the  part  its  people  may  or  may  not  have 
played  in  the  long  period  of  his  decline. 

The  defection  of  Ystrad  Towy,  the  heart  and  life 
of  the  old  South  Welsh  monarchy  and  always  a  great 
source  of  strength  to  Owen,  must  have  been  still 
more   disheartening,    but    it  seems  likely   that   the 


28o  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

submission  of  his  allies  between  Carmarthen,  Dyne- 
vor,  and  Llandovery  was  of  a  temporary  nature. 
Mysterious  but  undoubtedly  well-founded  traditions, 
too,  have  come  down  concerning  the  movements  of 
Glyndwr  himself  during  the  latter  part  of  this  year. 
He  is  pictured  to  us  as  wandering  about  the  country, 
sometimes  with  a  few  trusty  followers,  sometimes 
alone  and  in  disguise.  This  brief  and  temporary 
withdrawal  from  publicity  does  not  admit  of  any  con- 
fusion with  the  somewhat  similar  circumstances  in 
which  he  passed  the  closing  years  of  his  life.  All  old 
writers  are  agreed  as  to  this  hiatus  in  the  midst  of 
Glyndwr's  career,  even  when  they  differ  in  the  pre- 
cise date  and  in  the  extent  of  his  depression.  One 
speaks  of  him  as  a  hunted  outlaw,  which  for  either  the 
year  1405  or  1406  is  of  course  ridiculous.  Another, 
with  much  more  probability,  represents  him  as  going 
about  the  country  in  disguise  with  a  view  to  discov- 
ering the  inner  sentiments  of  the  people.  A  cave  is 
shown  near  the  mouth  of  the  Dysanni  between 
Towyn  and  Llwyngwril,  where  during  this  period  he 
is  supposed  to  have  been  concealed  for  a  time  from 
pursuing  enemies  by  a  friendly  native.  Upon  the 
mighty  breast  of  Moel  Hebog,  over  against  Snowdon, 
another  hiding-place  is  connected  with  his  name  and 
with  the  same  crisis  in  his  fortunes.  A  quite  recently 
published  manuscript  *  from  the  Mostyn  collection 
contains  a  story  to  the  effect  that  when  the  abbot  of 
Valle  Crucis,  near  Llangollen,  was  walking  on  the 
Berwyns  early  one  morning  he  came  across  Glyndwr 
wandering   alone   and    in    desultory    fashion.      The 

*  A  Soldier  of  Calais, 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  281 

abbot,  as  head  of  a  Cistercian  foundation,  was  pre- 
sumably unfriendly  to  the  chieftain  whose  icono- 
clasms  must  have  horrified  even  his  friends  the 
Franciscans.  There  is  nothing  of  interest  in  the 
actual  details  of  this  chance  interview.  The  fact 
of  Glyndwr  being  alone  in  such  a  place  is  suggestive 
and  welcome  merely  as  a  little  bit  of  evidence 
recently  contributed  to  the  strong  tradition  of 
his  long  wanderings.  The  abbot  appears  from  the 
narrative  to  have  been  anything  but  glad  to  see  him 
and  told  him  that  he  had  arisen  a  hundred  years  too 
soon,  to  which  the  Welsh  leader  and  Prince  made  no 
reply  but  "  turned  on  his  heel  and  departed  in 
silence." 

A  much  fuller  and  better-known  story,  however,  of 
this  mysterious  period  of  Glyndwr's  career  survives 
in  the  lolo  manuscripts.  Sir  Laurence  Berkrolles  of 
St.  Athan  was  a  famous  scion  of  that  Anglo-Norman 
stock  who  had  carved  up  Glamorganshire  in  Henry 
the  First's  time.  He  had  inherited  the  great  castle 
and  lordship  of  Coity  from  his  mother's  family,  the 
Turbervilles,  whose  male  line  had  only  just  failed  after 
three  centuries  of  such  occupation  as  must  have  made 
men  of  them  indeed.  Sir  Laurence,  it  need  hardly 
be  remarked,  had  experienced  a  stormy  time  for 
the  past  few  years,  battling  for  his  patrimony 
with  Glyndwr's  sleepless  legions.  There  was  now 
a  lull,  presumably  in  this  year  1406,  and  Sir  Lau- 
rence was  resting  in  his  castle  and  rejoicing  doubtless 
in  the  new  sense  of  security  to  which  Glamorgan  had 
just  settled  down.  Hither  one  day  came  a  strange 
gentleman,  unarmed  and  accompanied  by  a  servant, 


282  Owen  Glyndwr  [1406 

and  requested  in  French  a  night's  lodging  of  Sir  Lau- 
rence. The  hospitable  Marcher  readily  assented  and 
placed  the  best  that  the  castle  afforded  before  his 
guest,  to  whom  he  took  so  great  a  fancy  that  he  ended 
in  begging  him  to  prolong  his  stay  for  a  few  days. 
As  an  inducement  he  informed  the  traveller  that  it 
was  quite  possible  he  might  in  such  case  be  fortunate 
enough  to  see  the  great  Owen  Glyndwr,  for  it  was 
rumoured  that  he  was  in  that  neighbourhood,  and  he 
(Sir  Laurence)  had  despatched  his  tenants  and  serv- 
ants and  other  men  in  his  confidence  to  hunt  for 
Owen  and  bring  him  in,  alive  or  dead,  under 
promise  of  great  reward. 

"  It  would  be  very  well,"  replied  the  guest,  "  to 
secure  that  man  were  any  persons  able  to  do  so." 

Having  remained  at  Sir  Laurence's  castle  four  days 
and  three  nights  the  stranger  announced  his  intention 
of  departing.  On  doing  so  he  held  out  his  hand  to 
his  host  and  thus  addressed  him : 

"  Owen  Glyndwr,  as  a  sincere  friend,  having  neither 
hatred,  treachery,  or  deception  in  his  heart,  gives  his 
hand  to  Sir  Laurence  Berkrolles  and  thanks  him  for 
his  kindness  and  generous  reception  which  he  and  his 
friend  (in  the  guise  of  a  servant)  have  experienced 
from  him  at  his  castle,  and  desires  to  assure  him  on 
oath,  hand  in  hand,  and  hand  on  heart,  that  it  will 
never  enter  his  mind  to  avenge  the  intentions  of  Sir 
Laurence  towards  him,  and  that  he  will  not,  so  far  as 
he  may,  allow  such  desire  to  exist  in  his  own  know- 
ledge and  memory,  nor  in  the  minds  of  any  of  his 
relations  or  adherents."  Having  spoken  thus  and  with 
such   astonishing   coolness    disclosed    his    identity. 


1406]  The  Tripartite  Indenture  283 

Glyndwr  and  his  pseudo-servant  went  their  way. 
Sir  Laurence  was  struck  dumb  with  amazement,  and 
that  not  merely  in  a  metaphorical  but  in  a  literal 
sense,  for  the  story  goes  on  to  say  that  he  lost  the 
power  of  speech  from  that  moment !  Glyndwr's 
faithful  laureate,  lolo  Goch,  strengthens  the  tradition 
of  his  master's  mysterious  disappearance  at  this  time 
by  impassioned  verses  deploring  his  absence  and  call- 
ing on  him  to  return  to  his  heartbroken  poet : 

"  I  saw  with  aching  heart 
The  golden  dream  depart ; 
His  glorious  image  in  my  mind, 
Was  all  that  Owain  left  behind. 
Wild  with  despair  and  woebegone 
Thy  faithful  bard  is  left  alone, 
To  sigh,  to  weep,  to  groan. 

"  Thy  sweet  remembrance  ever  dear, 
Thy  name  still  ushered  by  a  tear, 
My  inward  anguish  speak  ; 
How  could'st  thou,  cruel  Owain,  go 
And  leave  the  bitter  tears  to  flow 
Down  Gryffydd's  furrowed  cheek  ?  'V 


CHAPTER  X 

ABERYSTWITH.      OWEN'S  POWER  DECLINES 
I 407- I 408 

LITTLE  is  known  of  Owen's  movements  during 
the  first  half  of  the  year  1407.  Entries  here 
and  there  upon  the  Rolls  indicate  that  no  im- 
provement so  far  as  the  general  peace  of  Wales  was 
concerned  had  taken  place,  whatever  there  may 
have  been  in  Henry's  prospects  of  ultimately  recov- 
ering his  authority  there,  prospects  which  now  wore 
a  much  brighter  look.  For  though  Glyndwr  and  his 
captains  were  still  active  in  the  field,  there  neverthe- 
less runs  through  all  the  scant  scraps  of  news  we  now 
get  of  him  an  unmistakable  note  of  depression  on 
the  part  of  his  friends,  with  proportionate  confidence 
on  that  of  his  enemies.  Prince  Henry  was  still 
Lieutenant  of  the  Marches  of  South  Wales,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  hereditary  jurisdiction,  such  as  it  now 
was,  over  the  royal  counties.  A  great  effort  was  in 
contemplation,  in  view  of  Owen's  failing  strength,  to 
put  a  complete  end  to  the  war.  Pardons  were  freely 
offered  to  his  supporters,  and  even  urged,  upon  the 
most  lenient  terms,  and  the  Marcher  Barons,  who 

284 


[1407-1408]  Aberystwith  285 

were  inclined  at  times,  when  not  personally  in  dan- 
ger, to  forget  the  conditions  on  which  they  held 
their  lands,  were  sternly  forbidden  to  leave  their 
castles.  Things  had  not  been  going  well  in  France  ; 
Calais  had  been  hard  pressed  and  the  great  English 
possessions  in  the  South  had  been  lamentably  re- 
duced in  extent.  Edward  the  Third  is  computed  to 
have  reigned  over  six  million  subjects  to  the  north 
of  the  Pyrenees,  a  population  much  greater  than 
that  of  England  and  Wales  combined.  Henry  had 
but  a  fraction  left  of  this  kingdom,  and  that  fraction 
most  unsteady  in  its  devotion.  He  had  been  sev- 
eral times  on  the  very  point  of  making  a  personal 
attempt  to  repair  his  failing  fortunes  beyond  the 
Channel.  But  his  health  was  beginning  even  thus 
early  to  fail,  and  his  nerves  were  completely  un- 
strung. He  had  made  up  his  mind,  however,  to  lead 
one  more  expedition  against  Owen,  now  that  the 
chances  seemed  so  much  more  favourable  than 
on  former  occasions.  From  even  this,  however,  it 
will  be  seen  that  he  ultimately  flinched,  and  it  was 
perhaps  well  that  he  did  so.  His  son  and  the  cap- 
tains round  him  understood  Welsh  warfare  much 
better  than  Henry.  The  rush  of  great  armies 
through  Wales  had  failed  hopelessly  as  a  means  of 
coercing  it,  and  would  fail  again.  The  steady  press- 
ure of  armed  bands  upon  Owen's  front  and  flanks, 
and  liberal  terms  to  all  who  deserted  him,  were  the 
only  methods  of  wearing  out  the  resources  of  this 
stubborn  patriot,  and  they  were  already  succeeding. 
That  he  was  himself  pressing  hard  upon  Pembroke- 
shire, however,  just  at  this  time  is  evident  from  the 


286  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 


orders  which  were  issued  for  forwarding  arms  and 
provisions  for  the  defence  of  the  royal  castles  in  that 
county,  the  recipient  being  Sir  Francis  A*  Court,  the 
King's  constable  there.  Aberystwith  castle,  how- 
ever, was  to  be  the  chief  point  of  the  Prince's  attack 
this  autumn,  and  his  father,  as  I  have  said,  was  ex- 
pected to  take  part  in  an  expedition  that  came  to  be 
associated  with  much  eclat. 

An  impression  not  altogether  easy  to  account  for, 
that  the  fall  of  this  great  castle  would  prove  the  final 
blow  to  Owen's  resistance,  got  abroad,  and  there  was 
a  great  rush  of  knights  and  nobles  to  take  part  in 
the  ceremony.  A  picked  force  of  2400  archers 
and  men-at-arms  was  told  off  for  the  service,  and  an 
entry  in  the  Issue  Rolls  notes  the  sum  of  £6%2^  as 
being  set  aside  for  their  pay  over  the  period  of  six 
months  beginning  in  June.  This  was  a  strong 
nucleus  for  an  expedition  that  could  be  supple- 
mented by  the  levies  of  the  border  counties  and 
the  spare  strength  of  the  local  Marcher  barons. 
Aberystwith  Castle  occupies  a  site  of  much  distinc- 
tion, placed  upon  a  bold  promontory  projecting  into 
the  sea.  Its  ruins  still  survive  as  one  of  the  innum- 
erable witnesses  to  Cromwell's  superfluous  vandalism, 
and  afford  a  favourite  lounge  to  summer  visitors  at 
the  popular  Welsh  watering-place.  But  the  first 
castle  built  on  Norman  lines  was  erected  in  the 
twelfth  century  by  Gilbert  de  Strongbow,  the  earliest 
Norman  adventurer  in  this  district.  A  centre  for 
generations  of  Norman-Welsh  strife,  dismantled  and 
restored  again  and  again  by  contentious  chieftains, 
it  was  finally  rebuilt  by  Edward  I. ;  and  what  Crom- 


1408]  Aberystwith  287 

well  and  time's  destroying  hand  have  left  of  it  dates 
chiefly  from  that  luminous  epoch  in  Welsh  history. 
Not  many  of  those,  perhaps,  who  loiter  amidst  its  life- 
less fragments  are  aware  that  in  the  season  of  1407 
it  was  the  object  of  quite  a  fashionable  crusade  on 
the  part  of  the  chivalry  of  England,  well  supplied 
with  every  requisite  of  siege  warfare  that  the  primi- 
tive science  of  the  period  could  provide. 

Harlech  was  at  this  time  the  headquarters  of 
Glyndwr's  family,  including  Edmund  Mortimer,  but 
to  localise  Glyndwr  himself  becomes  now  more  dif- 
ficult than  ever.  Since  Carmarthen  and  most  of 
South  Wales  had  forsaken  their  allegiance,  his  en- 
ergies must  have  been  still  more  severely  taxed  in 
keeping  up  the  spirit  and  directing  the  movements 
of  his  widely  scattered  bands.  We  heard  of  him 
lately  raiding  through  Pembroke  and  threatening 
the  Flemish  settlements.  Merioneth  and  Carnarvon 
in  the  North  were  still  faithful,  and  we  can  well  be- 
lieve that  the  great  castles  of  Aberystwith  and  Har- 
lech, lying  midway  between  the  remnant  of  his  south- 
ern followers  and  those  of  the  North,  were  in  some 
sort  the  keys  to  the  situation.  Aberystwith,  in 
which  Glyndwr  had  placed  a  strong  garrison  under 
a  trusty  captain,  seemed  so,  at  any  rate,  to  the  Eng- 
lish. Great  guns  were  sent  all  the  way  from  York- 
shire to  Bristol,  to  be  forwarded  thence  by  sea  to  the 
coast  of  Cardigan,  while  ample  stores  of  bows  and 
arrows,  bowstrings,  arblasts,  stone-shot,  sulphur,  and 
saltpetre  were  ordered  to  be  held  in  readiness  at 
Hereford.  Woods  upon  the  banks  of  the  Severn 
were  to  be  cut  down  and  the  forest  of  Dean  to  be 


288  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

picked  over  for  trees,  out  of  which  was  to  be  con- 
trived the  siege  machinery  for  the  subjugation  of 
hapless  Aberystwith.  A  troop  of  carpenters  were  to 
sail  from  Bristol  for  the  devoted  spot  and  erect  scaf- 
folds and  wooden  towers  upon  a  scale  such  as  had 
not  been  before  witnessed  at  any  of  the  innumerable 
sieges  of  this  Welsh  war.  Proclamations  calling  out 
the  great  nobility  of  western  England  and  the 
Marches  to  meet  the  King  and  Prince  at  Hereford 
were  sent  out.  Owen,  as  well  as  Aberystwith  and 
Harlech,  was  to  be  crushed,  and  the  King  himself, 
with  the  flower  of  his  chivalry,  was  to  be  there  to 
witness  the  closing  scene.  How  far  off  even  yet  was 
the  final  extinction  of  Owen,  no  one  then  could  have 
well  imagined. 

But  a  temporary  check  came  to  these  great  pre- 
parations. The  King,  as  he  had  shrunk  from  cross- 
ing the  Channel,  now  shrank  from  crossing  the  Welsh 
border.  A  pestilence,  somewhat  more  severe  than 
those  which  were  almost  chronic  in  the  country  in 
those  days,  swept  over  the  island  and  was  more 
virulent  in  the  West  than  elsewhere.  It  may  have 
been  this  that  for  a  time  suspended  operations. 
Strange  to  say,  too,  the  Richard  myth  was  not  quite 
extinct,  for  during  this  summer  bills  were  found 
posted  up  about  London  proclaiming  that  he  was 
"  yet  alive  and  in  health,  and  would  come  again 
shortly  with  great  magnificence  and  power  to  re- 
cover his  kingdom."  But  neither  pestilence  nor  the 
vagaries  of  the  King  nor  false  rumours  of  the  dead 
Richard  were  allowed  to  permanently  unsettle  the 
Aberystwith  enterprise.      Fighting  in  Wales  had  by 


14081  Aberystwith  289 

no  means  been  a  popular  or  fashionable  pastime, 
when  there  was  no  territory  to  be  won  or  to  be  de- 
fended. It  was  poor  sport  for  the  heavy-armed  sons 
of  Mars  of  that  period,  all  athirst  for  glory,  this  tilt- 
ing over  rough  ground  at  active  spearmen  who  melted 
away  before  their  cumbrous  onslaught  only  to  return 
and  deal  out  death  and  wounds  at  some  unexpected 
moment  or  in  some  awkward  spot.  But  now  whole 
clouds  of  gay  cavaliers,  besides  men  scarred  and 
weather-beaten  with  Welsh  warfare,  gathered  to  the 
crusade  against  Aberystwith.  French  wars  just 
now  were  at  a  discount,  not  because  the  spirit  was 
unwilling,  but  because  the  exchequer  was  weak, 
so,  the  supply  of  fighting  knights  and  squires  being 
for  the  moment  greater  than  the  demand,  Prince 
Henry  reaped  the  benefit  of  the  situation  in  his 
march  through  South  Wales. 

But  the  bluest  blood  and  the  most  brilliant  equip- 
ment were  futile  in  attack  against  castles  that  nature 
and  Edward  the  First  had  combined  to  make  invul- 
nerable. The  guns  and  scaffolds  and  wooden  towers 
were  all  there,  but  they  were  powerless  against 
Aberystwith  and  the  brave  Welshmen  who,  under 
Owen's  lieutenant,  Rhys  ap  Griffith  ap  Llewelyn, 
defended  it.  The  King's  particular  cannon,  weigh- 
ing four  and  one  half  tons,  was  there,  which,  with 
another  called  the  Messenger,  shook  the  rock-bound 
coasts,  striking  terror,  we  may  well  fancy,  into  the 
peasants  of  that  remote  country  and  proving  more 
destructive  to  those  behind  it  than  those  before,  for 
we  are  told  that  it  burst  during  the  siege,  a  common 

thing  with  cannons  of  that  day,  dealing  death  to  all 

19 


290  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

around.  Once  an  hour,  it  is  usually  estimated,  was 
the  greatest  rapidity  with  which  these  cumbrous 
pieces  could  be  fired  with  safety,  and  we  may  well 
believe  that  the  moment  of  explosion  must  have 
been  a  much  more  anxious  one,  seeing  how  often 
they  burst,  to  their  friends  beside  them  than  to  their 
foes  hidden  behind  the  massive  walls  of  a  Norman 
castle.  The  Duke  of  York  was  there,  and  the  Earl 
of  Warwick,  who,  two  years  previously,  had  defeated 
Glyndwr  in  a  pitched  battle  and  was  eager,  no  doubt, 
to  meet  him  again.  Sir  John  Grendor,  too,  was 
present,  no  courtier,  but  a  hero  of  the  Welsh  wars, 
and  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  a  typical  border  soldier,  who 
became  Lord  Cobham  and  was  ultimately  hunted 
down  as  a  Lollard  at  Welshpool  and  burned  by 
Henry  V. ;  while  Lord  Berkeley  commanded  the 
fleet  and  managed  the  siege  train.  It  was  not 
known  at  Aberystwith,  either  by  the  Welsh  or  the 
besiegers,  where  Owen  was.  He  could  not  readily 
trust  himself  in  castles,  besieged  both  by  land  and 
sea,  and  run  the  risk  of  being  caught  like  a  fox  in  a 
trap.  He  bided  his  time,  on  this  occasion,  as  will  be 
seen,  and  arrived  precisely  at  the  right  moment. 
Prince  Henry  found  the  castle  impregnable  to  as- 
sault, and  there  Avas  nothing  for  it  but  to  sit  down 
and  reduce  it  by  starvation.  The  only  hope  of  the 
garrison  lay  in  Owen's  relieving  them,  and  with  such 
an  army  before  them  the  possibility  of  this  seemed 
more  than  doubtful.  Provisions  soon  began  to  fail, 
and  in  the  middle  of  September  Rhys  ap  Griffith 
made  overtures  and  invited  seventeen  of  the  English 
leaders  within  the  castle  to  arrange  a  compromise. 


1408]  Aberystwith  291 

One  of  these  was  Richard  Courtney  of  the  Powder- 
ham  family,  a  scholar  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford, 
and  Chancellor  of  the  University.  Mass  was  said 
by  this  accomplished  person  to  the  assembled  Welsh 
and  English  leaders,  after  which  they  received  the 
sacrament  and  then  proceeded  to  draw  up  an  agree- 
ment which  seems  a  strange  one.  By  it  the  Welsh 
undertook  to  deliver  up  the  castle  on  November  ist 
if  Glyndwr  had  not  in  the  meantime  appeared  and 
driven  off  the  besiegers.  Till  that  date  an  armistice 
was  to  continue.  Those  of  the  garrison  who  would 
not  accept  these  terms  were  to  be  turned  out  to  take 
their  chance  ;  the  rest  were  to  receive  a  full  pardon 
at  the  capitulation.  The  abbot  of  Ystradfflur,  who, 
though  a  Cistercian,  had  taken  Owen's  side,  and 
three  Welsh  gentlemen,  were  given  up  as  hostages. 

The  Prince  and  his  nobles  were  doubtless  glad 
enough  to  get  away  from  so  monotonous  a  task  in  so 
remote  a  spot,  though  their  return  to  England  was 
hardly  a  glorious  one.  No  one  seems  to  have  ex- 
pected Owen,  and  only  five  hundred  soldiers  were 
left  in  camp  at  the  abbey  of  Ystradfflur,  some  fifteen 
miles  off,  to  insure  the  proper  fulfilment  of  the 
agreement  when  November  should  come  round. 
Parliament  was  to  meet  and  did  meet  at  Gloucester 
in  October,  and  the  King  himself,  so  much  import- 
ance did  he  attach  to  Aberystwith,  still  talked  of  re- 
turning with  his  son  to  receive  its  surrender  at  the 
appointed  time.  But  neither  the  royal  progress 
nor  the  surrender  became  matters  of  fact,  for  during 
October  Owen  slipped  unexpectedly  into  the  castle 
with  a  fresh  force,  repudiated,  as   indeed  he  had  a 


292  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

right  to  repudiate,  the  agreement,  and  branded  as 
traitors  to  his  cause  those  who  had  made  it,  which 
was  hard.  The  five  hundred  royal  soldiers  at 
Ystradfflur  had  shrunk  in  numbers  and  relaxed  in 
discipline,  and  had  at  any  rate  no  mind  to  encounter 
Owen,  who  remained  in  possession  of  the  west  coast 
and  its  castles  throughout  a  winter  which  so  far  as 
any  further  news  of  him  is  concerned  was  an  un_ 
eventful  one.  In  the  meantime  the  Parliament 
which  sat  at  Gloucester  for  six  weeks  in  the  autumn 
was  greatly  exercised  about  Welsh  affairs.  Wales 
had  returned  no  revenue  since  Glyndwr  first  raised 
his  standard,  and  the  sums  of  money  that  had  been 
spent  in  vain  endeavours  to  crush  his  power  had  been 
immense.  The  feeling  was  now  stronger  than  ever 
that  taxation  for  this  purpose,  one  that  brought  no 
returns  either  in  glory  or  plunder,  had  reached  its 
limit,  and  that  it  was  high  time  the  nobles  whose  in- 
terests lay  in  Wales  should  take  upon  themselves 
for  the  future  the  heavy  burden  of  Welsh  affairs. 

One  incident  occurred  at  this  Parliament  which 
had  some  significance  and  was  not  without  humour. 
The  Prince  of  Wales  was  publicly  thanked  for  his 
services  before  Aberystwith  almost  upon  the  very 
day  when,  unknown,  of  course,  to  him  and  to  those 
at  distant  Gloucester,  Owen  had  slipped  into  the  cas- 
tle about  which  so  much  stir  was  being  made,  upset 
the  whole  arrangement,  and  turned  the  costly  cam- 
paign into  an  ignominious  failure.  It  is  significant, 
too,  that  the  Prince,  after  acknowledging  the  praises 
of  his  father  and  the  Parliament,  kneeled  before  the 
former  and  "spake  some  generous  words"  concern- 


1408]  Aberystwith  293 

ing  the  Duke  of  York,  whose  advice  and  assistance 
"had  rescued  the  whole  expedition  from  peril  and 
desolation."  This  looks  as  if  Owen's  people  had  not 
allowed  the  return  journey  of  the  Prince  and  his 
friends  and  his  even  still  large  force  to  be  the  pro- 
menade that  was  expected.  It  may  well  indeed  have 
been  the  ubiquitous  Glyndwr  himself  from  whom 
the  sagacity  of  the  Duke  delivered  them  in  the 
wilds  of  Radnor  or  Carmarthen.  Though  Aberyst- 
with and  Harlech  were  safe  for  this  winter,  the 
Prince,  with  a  deliberation  perhaps  emphasised  by 
chagrin  at  his  failure,  made  arrangements  for  a  sec- 
ond attempt  to  be  undertaken  in  the  following 
summer. 

The  winter  of  1407- 1408  was  the  most  terrible 
within  living  memory.  It  is  small  wonder  that  no 
echo  of  siege  or  battle  or  feat  of  arms  breaks  the  si- 
lence of  the  snow-clad  and  war-torn  country.  Birds 
and  animals  perished  by  thousands,  for  a  sheet  of 
frozen  snow  lay  upon  the  land  from  before  Christmas 
till  near  the  end  of  March.  Yet  outside  Wales  even 
so  cruel  a  winter  could  not  still  all  action.  For 
Glyndwr's  old  ally,  Northumberland,  selected  this, 
of  all  times  and  seasons,  for  that  last  reckless  bid  for 
power  which  has  been  before  alluded  to,  and  with 
Bardolf  and  Bifort,  Owen's  Bishop  of  Bangor,  went 
out  across  the  bitter  cold  of  the  Yorkshire  moors,  the 
first  two  of  them,  at  any  rate,  to  death  and  ruin. 
Bifort,  however,  seems  to  have  got  away  and  carried 
the  nominal  honours  of  his  bishopric  for  many 
years. 

The  opening  of  summer  in  1408  found  Owen  still 


294  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

active  and  dangerous.  No  longer  so  as  of  old  to  the 
peace  of  England  and  to  Henry's  throne, — that  crisis 
had  passed  away, — but  he  was  still  an  unsurmounta- 
ble  obstacle  to  the  good  government  of  Wales.  We 
know  this  rather  from  the  anxiety  to  subdue  him 
manifested  this  year  by  the  King's  council  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  business,  than  from  any  de- 
tailed knowledge  of  his  actions.  Of  these  one  can 
guess  the  general  tenor,  and  the  necessary  sameness 
of  a  guerilla  warfare  somewhat  mitigates  the  disap- 
pointment natural  at  the  lack  of  actual  detail.  One 
gathers  from  the  brief  but,  from  one  point  of  view, 
significant  entries  in  the  public  records  how  entirely 
demoralised  most  of  the  country  still  remained. 
Here  is  an  order  to  prevent  supplies  being  sent  to 
the  rebels ;  there  a  caution  to  keep  the  bonfires  in 
Cheshire  or  Shropshire  ready  for  the  match ;  there 
again  are  notes  of  persons  becoming  surety  for  the 
good  behaviour  of  repentant  Welshmen,  or  Lord 
Marchers  trying  to  come  again  to  terms  with  their 
rebellious  Cymric  tenants.  Panic-stricken  letters, 
however,  came  no  more  from  beleaguered  castles, 
nor  do  the  people  of  Northampton  any  longer  quake 
in  their  beds  at  the  name  of  Glyndwr,  though  the 
border  counties,  and  with  good  cause,  feel  as  yet  by 
no  means  wholly  comfortable. 

''In  1408,"  says  the  lolo  manuscript,  "the  men  of 
Glamorgan  were  excited  to  commotion  by  the  extra  op- 
pression of  the  King's  men ;  many  of  the  chieftains  who 
had  obtained  royal  favour  burnt  their  stacks  and  barns 
lest  Owen's  men  should  take  them.  But  these  chieftains 
fled  to  the  extremity  of  England  and  Wales,  where  they 


1408]  Aberystwith  295 

were  defended  in  the  castles  and  camps  of  the  King's 
forces  and  supported  by  the  rewards  of  treason  and 
stratagem.  Owen  could  not  recover  his  lands  and  au- 
thority because  of  the  treachery  prevalent  in  Anglesey 
and  Arvon,  which  the  men  of  Glamorgan  called  the 
treason  of  the  men  of  Arvon." 

All  this  is  sadly  involved,  but  one  treasures  any- 
thing that  has  a  genuine  ring  about  it  in  connection 
with  this  shadowy  year.  Arvon,  it  may  be  remarked, 
is  the  "  cantref "  facing  the  submissive  Anglesey, 
and  no  doubt  the  royal  castle  of  Carnarvon  was  able 
by  this  time  to  exercise  an  intimidating  influence  on 
that  portion  of  the  country. 

Prince  Henry's  commission  as  Lieutenant  of  both 
North  and  South  Wales  was  again  renewed ;  and, 
gathering  his  forces  at  Hereford  in  June,  he  again 
moved  on  towards  the  stubborn  castle  of  Aberyst- 
with, making  Carmarthen,  the  old  capital  of  South 
Wales,  his  base  of  operations.  Aberystwith  this 
time  held  out  till  winter,  when  it  at  last  fell,  the  gar- 
rison meeting  with  no  harsher  treatment  than  that 
of  ejection  without  arms  or  food.  Harlech,  which 
Gilbert  and  John  Talbot  had  by  the  throat,  with  a 
thousand  well-armed  men  and  a  big  siege  train,  re- 
sisted even  longer.  The  Welsh  this  time  were  able 
to  utilise  the  sea,  which  in  those  days  beat  against 
the  foot  of  the  high  rock  upon  which  the  castle 
stands,  a  rock  now  removed  from  the  shore  by  half 
a  mile  or  more  of  sandy  common.  Glyndwr,  too, 
was  now  able  to  move  freely  from  one  beleaguered 
fortress  to  another.  Both  of  them  held  out  with 
singular  valour  and  tenacity,  attacking  the  provision 


296  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

boats  which  came  from  Bristol  for  the  besieging 
armies,  and  disputing  every  point  that  offered  an  op- 
portunity with  sleepless  vigilance  and  tireless  energy. 
Edmund  Mortimer  died  either  during  the  siege  or 
immediately  after  the  surrender,  of  starvation  some 
writers  say,  though  privation  would  perhaps  be  a 
more  appropriate  and  likely  term.  Mortimer's  wife 
and  three  girls,  with  a  son  Lionel,  together  with 
that  ''  eminent  woman  of  a  knightly  family,"  Glyn- 
dwr's  own  consort,  fell  into  the  King's  hands  with 
the  capture  of  Harlech,  and  seem  to  have  been  taken 
to  London  in  a  body. 

There  is  something  pathetic  about  this  wholesale 
termination  of  Owen's  domestic  life,  in  what  for  that 
period  would  be  called  his  old  age.  One  longs,  too,  to 
know  something  about  it.  How  Margaret  Hanmer 
deported  herself  under  the  reflected  glories  of  her 
lord.  Whether  indeed  she  saw  much  of  him,  and  if 
so,  where ;  whether  she  was  a  stout-hearted  patriot 
and  bore  the  trials  and  the  uncertainties  of  her 
dangerous  pre-eminence  with  proud  fortitude,  or 
whether  she  wept  over  the  placid  memories  of 
Sycherth  and  Glyndyfrdwy,  and  deplored  the  for- 
tune that  had  made  her  a  hero's  wife  and  a  wanderer. 
She  had  three  married  daughters  to  give  her  shelter 
in  Herefordshire.  Let  us  hope  that  she  found  her 
way  to  one  of  them,  as  her  husband  did  years  later 
when  the  storms  of  his  life  were  over.  As  for  the 
Mortimers,  that  branch  of  the  family  was  entirely 
wiped  out.  The  children  died,  and  the  gentle 
Katherine,  who  had  married  so  near  the  throne  of 
England,  soon  followed  them  and  lies  somewhere 


1408]  Aberystwith  297 

beneath  the  roar  of  London  traffic  in  a  city  church- 
yard. One  account  places  the  capture  and  removal 
to  London  of  Glyndwr's  family  at  a  later  period,  but 
as  the  interest  in  this  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  senti- 
ment, the  precise  date  is  of  no  special  moment. 

The  lines  were  now  rapidly  tightening  round 
Owen.  The  English  government,  by  this  time 
fairly  free  from  foreign  complications,  showed  a 
vihgance  in  Wales  which  it  would  have  been  well 
for  it  to  have  shown  in  former  years,  when  the 
danger  was  much  greater.  Owen,  on  his  part,  re- 
lapsed gradually  into  a  mere  guerilla  leader,  though 
the  hardy  bands  that  still  rallied  round  him  and 
scorned  to  ask  for  pardon  were  still  so  numerous 
and  formidable  that  it  was  with  difficulty  the  King 
could  prevent  some  of  the  Marcher  barons  even  now 
from  purchasing  security  against  his  attacks.  Talbot 
with  bodies  of  royal  troops  still  remained  as  a  garri- 
son in  Wales.  It  is  curiously  significant,  too,  and 
not  readily  explicable,  that  in  this  year  1409  the 
town  of  Shrewsbury  closed  her  gates  against  an 
English  army  marching  into  Wales  and  refused  them 
provisions.  It  looks  as  if  even  the  honest  Salopians, 
tired  of  keeping  guard  against  the  ubiquitous 
Glyndwr,  had  thus  late,  and  for  the  second  time  in 
the  war,  made  some  sort  of  terms  with  him.  We  find 
also  Charleton,  Lord  of  Powys,  about  this  time  grant- 
ing pardons  to  those  of  his  tenants  who  had  been 
"out  with  Glyndwr,"  while  he  was  rewarding  his 
more  faithful  lieges  in  the  borough  of  Welshpool 
by  an  extension  of  their  corporation  limits  to  an 
area  of  twenty  thousand  acres,  an  unique  distinction 


298  Owen  Glyndwr  [1407- 

which  that  interesting  border  town  enjoys  to  this 
day. 

Meanwhile  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  royal 
party  treated  all  Welsh  captives  with  the  leniency 
we  have  seen  at  Aberyswith,  Harlech,  and  else- 
where. Rhys  Ddu,  a  noted  captain  of  Glyndwr's, 
and  Philip  Scudamore,  a  scion  of  that  famous  Here- 
fordshire family  into  which  the  Welsh  leader's 
daughter  had  married,  were  taken  prisoners  while 
raiding  in  Shropshire  and  sent  to  London  and  placed 
in  the  Tower,  where  several  Welsh  nobles  had  been 
this  long  time  languishing.  Rhys  was  taken  to  the 
Surrey  side  of  the  river  by  the  Earl  of  Arundel, 
tried,  and  handed  over  to  the  sheriff,  who  had  him 
dragged  upon  a  hurdle  to  Tyburn  and  there  executed. 
His  quarters,  like  those  of  many  Welsh  patriots  be- 
fore him,  were  sent  to  hang  over  the  gates  of  four 
English  cities,  and  his  head  was  affixed  to  London 
Bridge.  Ten  Welsh  gentlemen  were  under  lock  and 
key  at  Windsor  Castle.  They  were  now  handed 
over  to  the  Marshal  and  kept  in  the  Tower  till 
heavy  ransoms  were  forthcoming.  But  Henry's 
treatment  of  his  Welsh  enemies  was  upon  the  whole 
the  reverse  of  vengeful,  and  he  was  wise  in  his  gen- 
eration. His  wholesale  pardons  to  men  wearied 
with  years  of  war  in  a  cause  now  so  utterly  hopeless 
were  infinitely  more  efficacious  against  that  implaca- 
ble foe  who  would  not  himself  dream  of  asking 
terms.  Owen,  too,  on  his  part  had  many  prisoners, 
hidden  away  in  mountain  fastnesses,  chief  of  whom 
was  the  hapless  David  Gam,  whom  my  readers  will 
almost  have  forgotten.     Nine  of  these,  we  are  told 


14081  Aberystwith  299 

by  one  writer,  his  followers  hung,  greatly  to  their 
leader's  chagrin,  since  he  wanted  them  for  hostages 
or  for  exchange. 

The  Avignon  Pope  had  done  Owen  little  good. 
A  certain  religious  flavour  was  introduced  into  the 
martial  songs  of  the  bards,  and  Owen's  native  claims 
to  the  leadership  of  Wales  were  now  supplemented 
by  papal  and  ecclesiastical  blessings  from  this  new 
and  very  modern  fount  of  inspiration.  But  every- 
thing ecclesiastical  at  Bangor  was  in  ashes,  the  torch, 
it  will  be  remembered,  having  been  applied  by 
Glyndwr  himself.  The  royal  bishop,  Young,  had 
years  before  fled  to  England  and  was  now  enjoying 
the  peaceful  retirement  of  Rochester.  Owen's 
bishop,  Bifort,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  wandering 
soldier.  The  more  vigorous  Trevor,  who  came  back 
to  Owen  in  1404,  was  at  this  time  in  France,  making 
a  last  effort,  it  is  supposed,  to  interest  the  French 
King  in  Glyndwr's  waning  cause.  But  death  over- 
took him  while  still  in  Paris,  and  he  lies  buried  in 
the  chapel  of  the  infirmary  of  the  Abbey  de  St. 
Victor  beneath  the  following  epitaph : 

"  Hie  jacet  Reverendus  in  Christo  Pater  Johannes 
Episcopus  asaphensis  in  Wallia  qui  obiit  A.D.  1410  die 
secundo  mensis  aprilis  cujus  anima  feliciter  requiescat  in 
pace.     Amen." 


CHAPTER XI 

LAST  YEARS  OF  OWEN'S  LIFE 
I4IO-1416 

OF  the  last  six  years  of  Owen's  life,  those  from 
1410  to  1416,  there  is  little  to  be  said.  His 
cause  was  hopelessly  lost  and  he  had  quite 
ceased  to  be  dangerous.  Wales  was  reconquered 
and  lay  sick,  bleeding,  and  wasted  beneath  the  calm 
of  returning  peace.  Thousands,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
cursed  Glyndwr  as  they  looked  upon  the  havoc 
which  the  last  decade  had  wrought.  The  unsuccess- 
ful rebel  or  patriot,  call  him  what  you  will,  has  far 
more  friends  among  those  yet  unborn  than  among 
his  own  contemporaries,  above  all  in  the  actual 
hour  of  his  failure.  Of  this  failure,  too,  the  Welsh 
were  reminded  daily,  not  only  by  their  wasted 
country  and  ruined  homesteads  but  by  fierce  laws 
enacted  against  their  race  and  a  renewal  on  both 
sides  of  that  hatred  which  the  previous  hundred 
years  of  peace  had  greatly  softened. 

Men  born  of  Welsh  parents  on  both  sides  were 
now  forbidden  to  purchase  land  near  any  of  the 
Marcher  towns.     They  were  not   permitted   to  be 

300 


[1410-1416]  Last  Years  of  Owens  Life  301 

citizens  of  any  borough,  nor  yet  to  hold  any  office, 
nor  carry  armour  nor  any  weapon.  No  Welshman 
could  bind  his  child  to  a  trade,  nor  bring  him  up  to 
letters,  while  English  men  who  married  Welsh  women 
were  disfranchised  of  their  liberties.  In  all  suits 
between  Englishmen  and  Welshmen  the  judge  and 
jury  were  to  be  of  the  former  race,  while  all 
**  Cym-morthau,"  or  gatherings  for  mutual  assistance 
in  harvest  or  domestic  operations,  were  strictly 
forbidden. 

These  laws  were  kept  on  the  statute  books  till  the 
real  union  of  Wales  and  England  in  Henry  the 
Eighth's  time,  but  gradually  became  a  dead  letter  as 
the  memory  of  the  first  ten  bloody  years  of  the  cent- 
ury grew  fainter.  Glyndwr,  however,  believed  in 
the  justice  of  his  cause,  and  if  he  expressed  remorse 
for  the  methods  which  he  had  used  to  uphold  it,  we 
hear  nothing  of  such  apologies.  That  he  showed 
the  courage  of  his  convictions  in  heroic  fashion  no 
one  can  gainsay.  That  men  could  be  found  to  stand 
even  yet  in  such  numbers  by  his  side  is  the  most  el- 
oquent tribute  that  could  be  paid  to  his  personal 
magnetism.  He  had  lost  all  his  castles,  unless  in- 
deed, as  seems  likely,  those  grim  towers  of  Dolba- 
darn  and  Dolwyddelan  in  the  Snowdon  mountains 
were  left  to  him.  He  became  henceforward  a  mere 
outlaw,  confined  entirely  to  the  mountains  of  Car- 
narvon and  Merioneth,  between  those  fierce  and 
rapid  raids  which  we  dimly  hear  of  him  still  making 
upon  the  Northern  Marches.  His  old  companions, 
Rhys  and  William  ap  Tudor,  who  had  been  with  him 
from  the  beginning,  were  in  the  King's  hands,  and 


302  Owen  Glyndwr  \\^\^- 

were  about  this  time  executed  at  Chester  with  the 
usual  barbarities  of  the  period.  The  elder  was  the 
grandfather  of  Owen  Tudor,  and  consequently  the  an- 
cestor of  our  present  King.  David  Gam  was  still  a 
prisoner  in  Owen's  hands  till  141 2,  when  the  King 
entered  into  negotiations  for  his  release  through  the 
agency  of  Llewelyn  ap  Howel,  Sir  John  Tiptoft,  and 
William  Boteler.  What  terms  were  made  we  know 
not ;  an  exchange  was  in  all  likelihood  effected,  see- 
ing how  many  of  Owen's  friends  were  in  captivity. 
David's  liberation,  however,  was  by  some  means  suc- 
cessfully accomplished,  and  he  lived  to  fight  and 
fall  by  the  King's  side  at  Agincourt,  being  knighted, 
some  say,  as  he  lay  dying  upon  that  memorable  field. 
When,  in  14 13,  Prince  Henry  came  to  the  throne, 
he  issued  a  pardon  to  all  Welsh  rebels  indiscrimi- 
nately, not  excepting  Glyndwr.  But,  obstinate  to 
the  last,  the  old  hero  held  to  his  mountains,  refusing 
to  ask  or  to  receive  a  favour,  striking  with  his  now 
feeble  arm,  whenever  chance  offered,  the  English 
power  or  those  who  supported  it.  When  Henry  IV. 
succumbed  to  those  fleshly  ills  which  constant  trouble 
had  brought  upon  his  once  powerful  frame,  Glyndwr 
was  still  in  the  field  and  royal  troops  still  stationed 
in  the  Welsh  mountains  to  check  his  raids.  Tradi- 
tion has  it  that  he  was  at  last  left  absolutely  alone, 
when  he  is  supposed  to  have  wandered  about  the 
country  in  disguise  and  in  a  fashion  so  mysterious 
that  a  wealth  of  legend  has  gathered  around  these 
wanderings. 

"In   1415,"  says  one  old  chronicler,   "Owen  disap- 
peared so  that  neither  sight  nor  tidings  of  him  could  be 


1416]  Last  Years  of  Owen's  Life  303 

obtained  in  the  country.  It  was  rumoured  that  he  es- 
caped in  the  guise  of  a  reaper  bearing  a  sickle,  according 
to  the  tidings  of  the  last  who  saw  and  knew  him,  after 
which  little  or  no  information  transpired  respecting  him 
nor  of  the  place  or  name  of  his  concealment.  The  pre- 
valent opinion  was  that  he  died  in  a  wood  in  Glamorgan  ; 
but  occult  chroniclers  assert  that  he  and  his  men  still 
live  and  are  asleep  on  their  arms  in  a  cave  called  Ogof 
Dinas  in  the  Vale  of  Gwent,  where  they  will  continue 
until  England  is  self-abased,  when  they  will  sally  forth, 
and,  recognising  their  country's  privileges,  will  fight  for 
the  Welsh,  who  shall  be  dispossessed  of  them  no  more 
until  the  Day  of  Judgment,  when  the  earth  shall  be  con- 
sumed with  fire  and  so  reconstructed  that  neither  op- 
pression nor  devastation  shall  take  place  any  more,  and 
blessed  will  he  be  who  will  see  that  time." 

Carte  says  that  Owen  wandered  down  to  Hereford- 
shire in  the  disguise  of  a  shepherd  and  found  refuge 
in  his  daughter's  house  at  Monnington. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  in  141 5,  Henry  V.,  full  of 
his  French  schemes  and  ambitions,  and  with  no 
longer  any  cause  to  trouble  himself  about  Wales, 
sent  a  special  message  of  pardon  to  Glyndwr.  Per- 
haps the  young  King  felt  a  touch  of  generous  admira- 
tion for  the  brave  old  warrior  who  had  been  the 
means  of  teaching  him  so  much  of  the  art  of  war 
and  the  management  of  men,  and  who,  though  alone 
and  friendless,  was  too  proud  to  ask  a  favour  or  to 
bend  his  knee.  Sir  Gilbert  Talbot  of  Grafton, 
in  Worcestershire,  was  the  man  picked  out  by 
Henry  to  accomplish  this  gracious  act.  Nothing, 
however,   came  of  it   immediately.      Perhaps   the 


304  Owen  Glyndwr  [1410- 

great  campaign  of  Poitiers  interfered  with  a  mat- 
ter so  comparatively  trifling.  But  on  the  King's 
return  he  renewed  it  in  February,  1416,  commission- 
ing this  time  not  only  Talbot  but  Glyndwr's  own 
son,  Meredith,  as  envoys.  Whether  or  no  it  would 
have  even  now  and  by  such  a  channel  been  ac- 
ceptable is  of  no  consequence,  as  the  old  hero  was 
either  dead  or  in  concealment.  Common  sense  in- 
clines to  the  most  logical  and  most  generally  ac- 
cepted of  the  traditions  which  surround  his  last 
years,  namely,  the  one  which  pictures  him  resting 
quietly  after  his  stormy  life  at  the  home  of  one  or 
other  of  his  married  daughters  in  Herefordshire. 
Monnington  and  Kentchurch  both  claim  the  honour 
of  having  thus  sheltered  him.  Probably  they  both 
did,  seeing  how  near  they  lie  together,  though  the 
people  of  the  former  place  stoutly  maintain  that  it 
is  in  their  churchyard  his  actual  dust  reposes. 

At  Kentchurch  Court,  where  his  daughter  Alice 
Scudamore  lived  with  her  husband,  and  which  still  be- 
longs to  the  family,  a  tower  of  the  building  is  even 
yet  cherished  as  the  lodging  of  the  fallen  chieftain 
during  part  at  any  rate  of  these  last  years  of  ob- 
scurity. The  romantic  beauty  of  the  spot,  the  sur- 
vival of  the  mansion  and  of  the  stock  that  own  it, 
would  make  us  wish  to  give  Kentchurch  everything 
it  claims,  and  more,  in  connection  with  Glyndwr's 
last  days.  Above  the  Court,  which  stands  in  a  hol- 
low embowered  in  woods,  a  park  or  chase  climbs  for 
many  hundred  feet  up  the  steep  sides  of  Garaway 
Hill,  which  in  its  unconventional  wildness  and  en- 
tire freedom  from  any  modernising  touch  is  singu- 


1416]  Last  Years  of  Owen's  Life  305 

larly  in  keeping  with  the  ancient  memories  of  the 
place.  The  deer  brush  beneath  oaks  and  yews  of 
such  prodigious  age  and  size  that  some  of  them 
must  almost  certainly  have  been  of  good  size  when 
Thomas  Scudamore  brought  Alice,  the  daughter  of 
Owen  of  Glyndyfrdwy,  home  as  a  bride  ;  while  just 
across  the  narrow  valley,  through  which  the  waters 
of  the  Monnow  rush  swift  and  bright  between  their 
ruddy  banks,  the  village  and  ruined  castle  of  Gros- 
mont  stand  conspicuous  upon  their  lofty  ridge.  It 
must  in  fairness  to  the  claims  of  Monnington  be  re- 
membered that  Grosmont  was  not  precisely  the  ob- 
ject upon  which  Glyndwr,  if  he  were  still  susceptible 
to  such  emotions,  would  have  wished  his  fading  eye- 
sight to  dwell  long,  since  of  all  the  spots  in  Wales  (and 
it  is  just  in  Wales,  the  Monnow  being  the  boundary) 
Grosmont  had  been  the  one  most  pregnant,  perhaps, 
with  evil  to  his  cause.  For  it  was  the  defeat  of 
Glyndwr's  forces  there  that  may  be  said  to  have 
broken  the  back  of  his  rebellion.  And  as  we  stand 
upon  the  bridge  over  the  Monnow  midway  between 
England  and  Wales,  the  still  stately  ruins  of  the 
Norman  castle  that  must  often  have  echoed  to 
Prince  Henry's  cheery  voice  crown  the  hill  beyond 
us  ;  while  behind  it  the  quaint  village  that  rose  upon 
the  ashes  of  the  town  Glyndwr  burnt,  with  all  its 
civic  dignities,  looks  down  upon  us,  the  very  essence 
of  rural  peace. 

Glyndwr's  estates  had  long  ago  been  forfeited  to 
the  Crown  and  granted  to  John,  Earl  of  Somer- 
set. Soon  after  his  death  Glyndyfrdwy  was  sold 
to  the  Salusburys  of  Bachymbyd  and  of  Rdg  near 


3o6  Owen  Glyndwr  [i4io- 

Corwen,  one  of  the  very  few  alien  families  that  in  a 
peaceful  manner  had  become  landowners  in  North 
Wales  before  the  Edwardian  conquest.  It  is  only 
recently  indeed  that  there  has  ceased  to  be  a  Salus- 
bury  of  Rug.  Owen's  descendants,  through  his 
daughters,  at  any  rate,  are  numerous.  A  few  years 
after  his  death,  Parliament,  softening  towards  his 
memory,  passed  a  special  law  for  the  benefit  of  his 
heirs,  allowing  them  to  retain  or  recover  a  portion  of 
the  proscribed  estates.  In  consequence  of  this,  Alice 
Scudamore  made  an  effort  to  recover  Glyndyfrdwy 
and  Sycherth  from  the  Earl  of  Somerset  apparently 
without  success,  so  far  as  the  former  went,  in  view  of 
the  early  ownership  of  the  Salusburys. 

Of  Griffith,  the  son  who  was  so  long  a  prisoner  in 
the  Tower  in  company  with  the  young  King  of 
Scotland,  we  hear  nothing  more.  But  of  Meredith 
this  entry  occurs  in  the  Rolls  of  Henry  V.,  142 1  : 
**  Pardon  of  Meredith  son  of  Owynus  de  Glendordy 
according  to  the  sacred  precept  that  the  son  shall 
not  bear  the  iniquities  of  the  father."  To  another 
daughter  of  Glyndwr,  probably  an  illegitimate  one, 
Gwenllian,  wife  of  Phillip  ap  Rhys  of  Cenarth,  the 
famous  bard,  Lewis  Glyncothi,  wrote  various  poems, 
in  one  of  which  he  says :  "  Your  father  was  a  potent 
prince,  all  Wales  was  in  his  council." 

No  intelligent  person  of  our  day  could  regret  the 
failure  of  Glyndwr's  heroic  effort.  That  Welshmen 
of  the  times  we  have  been  treating  of  should  have 
longed  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  the  Anglo-Norman 
was  but  human,  for  he  was  not  only  a  bad  master, 
but  a  foreigner  and  wholly  antipathetic  to  the  Celtic 


1416]  Last  Years  of  Owens  Life  307 

nature.  At  the  same  time,  the  geographical  ab- 
surdity, if  the  word  may  be  permitted,  of  complete 
independence  was  frankly  recognised  by  almost 
every  Welsh  patriot  from  earliest  times.  The  notion 
of  a  suzerain  or  chief  king  in  London,  as  I  have 
remarked  elsewhere,  was  quite  in  harmony  with  the 
most  passionate  of  Welsh  demands.  Glyndwr  per- 
haps had  other  views ;  but  then  the  kingdom  that 
he  would  fain  have  ruled,  if  the  Tripartite  Convention 
is  to  be  relied  on,  stretched  far  beyond  the  narrow 
bounds  of  Wales  proper  and  quite  matched  in 
strength  either  of  the  other  two  divisions  which, 
under  this  fantastic  scheme,  Mortimer  and  Percy 
were  respectively  to  govern.  What  was  undoubtedly 
galling  to  the  Welsh  was  the  spectacle  of  a  province 
to  the  north  of  the  island,  consisting,  so  far  as  the 
bulk  of  its  power  and  civilisation  was  concerned,  of 
these  same  hated  Anglo-Normans,  not  only  claiming 
and  maintaining  an  entire  independence  on  no  basis 
that  a  Celt  could  recognise,  but  trafficking  continu- 
ously with  foreign  enemies  in  a  fashion  that  showed 
them  to  be  destitute  of  any  feeling  for  the  soil  of 
Britain  beyond  that  part  which  they  themselves  had 
seized.  To  the  long-memoried  Welshman  it  seemed 
hard,  and  no  doubt  illogical,  that  these  interlopers, 
one  practically  in  blood  and  speech  and  feeling  with 
their  own  oppressors,  should  thus  be  permitted  to 
set  up  a  rival  independence  within  the  borders  of 
the  island,  while  they  on  their  part  were  forced  to 
fuse  themselves  with  a  people  who  could  not  even 
understand  their  tongue  and  with  whom  they  had 
scarcely  a  sentiment  in  common.     It  is  difficult  not 


3o8  Owen  Glyndwr  [i4io- 

to  sympathise  with  the  mediaeval  Welshman  in  this 
attitude  or  to  refrain  from  wondering  at  the  strange 
turn  of  fortune  that  allowed  the  turbulent  am- 
bition of  some  Norman  barons  to  draw  an  artificial 
line  and  create  a  northern  province,  which  their  de- 
cendants,  if  they  showed  much  vigour  in  its  defence, 
showed  very  little  aptitude  for  governing  with  reason- 
able equity. 

Glyndwr,  it  is  true,  had  thrown  off  the  old  British 
tradition  and  had  called  in  foreigners  from  across 
the  sea,  as  Vortigern  to  his  cost  had  done  nearly  a 
thousand  years  before.  He  had  also  adopted  a 
French  Pope.  Neither  had  done  him  much  good, 
and  Welshmen  were  soon  as  ready  as  ever  to  fight 
their  late  brief  allies  for  the  honour  of  the  island  of 
Britain.  But  Glyndwr  from  an  early  period  in  his 
insurrection  had  kept  the  one  aim,  that  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  his  country,  dream  though  it  might 
be,  consistently  in  view.  No  means  were  to  be 
neglected,  even  to  the  ruining  of  its  fields  and  the 
destruction  of  its  buildings,  to  obtain  this  end.  How 
thoroughly  he  carried  out  his  views  has  been  suf- 
ficiently emphasised ;  so  thoroughly,  indeed,  as  to 
cause  many  good  Welshmen  to  refrain  from  wholly 
sharing  in  the  veneration  shown  for  his  memory  by 
the  bulk  of  his  countrymen.  There  can  be  but  one 
opinion,  however,  as  to  the  marvellous  courage  with 
which  he  clung  to  the  tree  of  liberty  that  he  had 
planted  and  watered  with  such  torrents  of  human 
blood,  till  in  literal  truth  he  found  himself  the  last 
leaf  upon  its  shrunken  limbs,  and  that  a  withered 
one.     In  the  heyday  of  his  glory  his  household  bard 


;rri 


mvr^  A 


Copyright  Mrs.  Leather. 

PORCH  OF  MONNINQTON  CHURCH   AND  QLYNDWR'S  REPUTED  GRAV£. 


1416] 


Last  Years  of  Owens  Life 


309 


and  laureate  wrote  much  extravagant  verse  in  his 
honour,  as  was  only  natural  and  in  keeping  with  the 
fancy  of  the  period  and  of  his  class.  But  the  Red 
lolo  himself,  in  all  likelihood,  little  realised  the 
prophetic  ring  in  the  lines  he  addressed  to  his 
master  on  the  closing  of  his  earthly  course,  though 
we,  at  least,  have  ample  evidence  of  their  prescience: 

"  And  when  thy  evening  sun  is  set, 
May  grateful  Cambria  ne'er  forget 
Its  morning  rays,  but  on  thy  tomb 
May  never-fading  laurels  bloom." 


CHAPTER  XII 

CONCLUSION 

AS  I  have  led  up  to  the  advent  of  Glyndwr  with 
a  rough  outline  of  Welsh  history  prior  to  his 
day,  I  will  now  cast  a  brief  glance  at  the 
period  which  followed.  English  people  have  a  tend- 
ency to  underestimate,  or  rather  to  take  into  small 
consideration,  the  wide  gulf  which,  not  only  in  former 
days,  but  to  some  extent  even  yet,  divides  the  two 
countries.  They  are  apt  to  think  that  after  the 
abortive  rising  of  Glyndwr,  provided  even  this 
stands  out  clearly  in  their  minds,  everything  went 
smoothly  and  Wales  became  merely  a  geographical 
expression  with  an  eccentric  passion  for  maintaining 
its  own  language.  As,  in  the  introduction  to  this 
book,  I  had  to  solicit  the  patience  of  the  general 
reader  and  crave  the  forbearance  of  the  expert  for 
an  effort  to  cover  centuries  in  a  few  pages,  so  I 
must  again  put  in  a  plea  for  another  venture  of  the 
same  kind — briefer,  but  none  the  less  difficult. 

The  ruin  left  by  Glyndwr's  war  was  awful.  It 
was  not  only  the  loss  of  property,  the  destruction  of 
buildings,  the  sterilisation  of  lands,  but  the  quarrels 
and  the  blood-feuds   which   the   soreness  of  these 

3x0 


Conclusion  3 1 1 


years  of  strife  handed  down  for  generations  to  the 
descendants  of  those  who  had  taken  opposing  sides. 
And  then  before  prosperity  had  fairly  hfted  its 
head,  before  bloody  quarrels  and  memories  had 
been  forgotten,  the  devastating  Wars  of  the  Roses 
were  upon  the  country,  and  it  was  plunged  once 
more  into  a  chaos  not  much  less  distracting  than 
that  in  which  the  preceding  generation  had  wel- 
tered. 

Though,  by  a  curious  turn  of  events,  she  ultimately 
gave  to  England  a  Lancastrian  king,  Wales  most 
naturally  favoured  the  House  of  York.  Edmund 
Mortimer,  uncle  to  the  young  Earl  of  March,  had 
shared  the  triumphs  and  the  perils  of  Glyndwr's  ris- 
ing. The  blood  of  Llewelyn  ap  lorwerth  flowed  in 
the  veins  of  the  Mortimers,  and  their  great  estates 
lay  chiefly  in  Wales  and  on  the  border.  The  old 
antagonism  to  Bolingbroke's  usurpation,  and  the 
sympathy  with  Richard  and  his  designated  heir  that 
half  a  century  before  accompanied  it,  were  still  re- 
membered. The  Yorkists,  however,  had  no  mono- 
poly of  Wales, — Welsh  knights  had  fought  vict- 
oriously in  France  under  Henry  V.,  and  Marcher 
barons  of  Lancastrian  sympathies  could  command 
a  considerable  following  of  Welshmen.  The  old 
confusion  of  lordship  government  still  retained  half 
Wales  as  a  collection  of  small  palatinates.  Once 
more  the  castles  that  Glyndwr  had  left  standing 
echoed  to  the  bustle  of  preparation  and  the  stir  of 
arms,  and  felt  the  blows  of  an  artillery  that  they 
could  no  longer  face  with  quite  the  composure  with 
which  they  had  faced  the  guns  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 


312  Owen  Glyndwr 

It  was  not  so  much  the  actual  damage  that  was  done, 
for  this  war  was  not  so  comprehensive,  but  rather 
the  passions  and  faction  it  aroused  among  the  Welsh 
gentry  of  both  races,  though  this  new  faction  no 
longer  ran  strictly  upon  racial  lines.  Nor,  again, 
was  it  the  amount  of  blood  that  was  shed,  for  this 
compared  to  Glyndwr's  war  was  inconsiderable,  but 
the  legacy,  rather,  of  lawlessness  that  it  left  behind. 
Sir  John  Wynne  of  Gwydir,  in  the  invaluable  chron- 
icle which  he  wrote  at  his  home  in  the  Vale  of  Con- 
way during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  draws  a  graphic 
picture  of  North  Wales  as  Henry  the  Seventh  found 
it.  Sir  John's  immediate  forbears  had  taken  a  brisk 
hand  in  the  doings  of  those  distracted  times,  and 
there  were  still  men  living  when  he  wrote  who  had 
seen  the  close  of  the  chaos  with  their  own  eyes,  and 
whose  minds  were  stored  with  the  evidence  of  their 
fathers  and  grandfathers.  Harlech  in  these  wars 
stood  once  more  a  noted  siege.  It  was  held  for  the 
Lancastrians  by  a  valiant  Welshman  against  the 
Herberts,  who  made  a  somewhat  celebrated  march 
through  the  mountains  to  besiege  it.  The  stout  de- 
fence it  offered  inspired  the  music  and  the  words  of 
the  Welsh  national  march,  ''  Men  of  Harlech," — as 
spirited  an  air  of  its  kind,  perhaps,  as  has  ever  been 
written.  The  Vale  of  Clwyd,  the  garden  of  North 
Wales,  was  burnt,  says  Sir  John,  **  to  cold  coals." 
Landowners  who  had  mortgaged  their  estates,  he 
goes  on  to  tell  us,  scarcely  thought  them  worth  re- 
deeming, while  the  deer  grazed  in  the  very  streets 
of  Llanrwst.  For  two  or  three  generations  the 
country  was  infested  by  bands  of  robbers  who  found 


Conclusion  313 


refuge  in  the  mountains  of  Merioneth  or  the  wild 
uplands  of  the  Berwyn  Range,  and  fought  for  the 
privilege  of  systematically  plundering  and  levying 
blackmail  on  the  Vale  of  Conway  and  the  richer 
meadows  of  Edeyrnion.  Sir  John's  grandfather 
found  it  necessary  to  go  to  church  attended  by  a 
bodyguard  of  twenty  men  armed  to  the  teeth.  *'  The 
red-haired  banditti  of  Mawddy "  kept  the  country 
between  the  Dovey  and  Mawddach  estuaries  and  in- 
land nearly  to  Shropshire  in  a  state  of  chronic  ter- 
ror. The  Carnarvon  squires  cherished  blood-feuds 
that  almost  resembled  a  vendetta,  laid  siege  to  one 
another's  houses,  and  engaged  in  mimic  battles  of  a 
truly  bloodthirsty  description.  The  first  Wynne  of 
Gwydir  left  West  Carnarvonshire  and  preferred  to 
live  among  the  brigands  of  the  Vale  of  Conway 
rather  than  among  his  own  relatives,  since  he  would 
"  either  have  to  kill  or  be  killed  by  them."  To  try  and 
combat  these  organised  bands  of  robbers,  Edward 
IV.  instituted,  in  1478,  the  Court  of  the  President 
and  Council  of  the  Marches  of  Wales,  with  summary 
jurisdiction  over  all  breakers  of  the  peace — pro- 
vided always  that  they  could  catch  them  !  The  legal 
machinery  of  the  lordships  was  wholly  ineffectual, 
for  though  each  petty  monarch  had  the  power  of 
life  and  death,  the  harbouring  of  thieves  and  out- 
laws became  a  matter  purely  of  personal  rivalry  and 
jealousy. 

But  this  epoch  of  Welsh  history  ended  with  the 
advent  of  the  Tudors,  which  is  in  truth  an  even 
more  notable  landmark  than  the  so-called  conquest 
of   Edward    I.     Wales   since   that   time   had   been 


314  Owen  Glyndwr 

governed  as  a  conquered  country,  or  a  Crown  province 
— she  had  been  annexed  but  not  united,  nor  had  she 
been  represented  in  ParHament,  while  outside  the 
Edwardian  counties  justice  was  administered,  or 
more  often  not  administered,  by  two  or  three  score 
of  petty  potentates.  One  must  not,  however,  make 
too  much  of  what  we  now  call  union  and  patriotism. 
Cheshire  had  been  till  quite  recently  an  independent 
earldom,  with  similar  relations  to  the  Crown  as  the 
lordship,  say,  of  Ruthin  or  of  Hay.  As  regards  na- 
tional feeling,  it  is  very  doubtful  if  the  sentiments 
that  had  animated  the  heptarchy  had  been  eradi- 
cated from  that  turbulent  palatinate  who  boasted 
the  best  archers  in  England  and  were  extremely 
jealous  of  their  licentious  independence. 

But  it  was  a  pure  accident  that  in  the  end  really 
reconciled  the  Welsh  to  a  close  union  with  the  hated 
Saxon.  Steeped  as  they  were  in  sentiment,  and 
credulous  to  a  degree  of  mysticism  and  prophecy,  and 
filled  with  national  pride,  the  rise  of  the  grandson  of 
Owen  Tudor  of  Penmynydd  to  the  throne  of  Britain 
was  for  the  Cymry  full  of  significance.  The  fact,  too, 
that  Henry  was  not  merely  a  Welshman  but  that  he 
landed  in  Wales  and  was  accompanied  thence  by  a 
large  force  of  his  fellow-countrymen  to  the  victorious 
field  of  Bosworth  was  a  further  source  of  pride  and 
consolation  to  this  long-harassed  people.  It  would 
be  hard  indeed  to  exaggerate  the  effect  upon  Wales 
and  its  future  relationship  with  England,  when  a 
curious  chain  of  events  elevated  this  once  obscure 
princeHng  to  the  throne  of  England.  It  was  strange, 
too,  that  it  should  be  a  Lancastrian  after  all  whose 


Conclusion  315 


accession  caused  such  joy  and  triumph  throughout 
a  province  which  had  shed  its  blood  so  largely  upon 
the  opposing  side.  The  bards  were  of  course  in  ec- 
stasies ;  the  prophecy  that  a  British  prince  should 
once  again  reign  in  London — which  had  faded  away 
into  a  feeble  echo,  without  heart  or  meaning,  since 
the  downfall  of  Glyndwr — now  astonished  with  its 
sudden  fulfilment  the  expounders  of  Merlin  and  the 
Brut  as  completely  as  it  did  the  audience  to  whom 
they  had  so  long  foretold  this  unlikely  consummation. 
Not  for  a  moment,  however,  we  may  well  believe,  was 
such  a  surprise  admitted  nor  the  difference  in  the 
manner  of  its  fulfilment.  But  who  indeed  would  carp 
at  that  when  the  result  was  so  wholly  admirable  ?  It  is 
not  our  business  to  trace  the  tortuous  ways  by  which 
fate  removed  the  more  natural  heirs  to  the  throne  and 
seated  upon  it  for  the  great  good  of  England  as 
well  as  of  Wales  the  grandson  of  an  Anglesey  squire 
of  ancient  race  and  trifling  estate. 

That  the  first  Tudor  disappointed  his  fellow- 
countrymen  in  some  of  their  just  expectations,  and 
behaved  in  fact  somewhat  meanly  to  them,  is  of  no 
great  consequence  since  his  burly  son  made  such 
ample  amends  for  the  shortcomings  of  his  father. 
The  matrimonial  barbarities  of  Henry  the  Eighth 
and  his  drastic  measures  in  matters  ecclesiastical 
have  made  him  so  marked  a  personage  that  men  for- 
get and  indeed  are  not  very  clearly  made  to  under- 
stand what  he  did  for  Wales,  and  consequently  for 
England  too. 

By  an  Act  of  Parliament  in  1535  the  whole  of  the 
Lordship  Marcher  system  was  swept  away,  and  the 


3i6  Owen  Glyndwr 

modern  counties  of  Denbigh,  Montgomery,  Mon- 
mouth, Glamorgan,  Brecon,  and  Radnor  were  formed 
out  of  the  fragments.  It  is  only  possible  to  generalise 
within  such  compass  as  this.  The  precise  details  be- 
long rather  to  antiquarian  lore  and  would  be  out  of 
place  here.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  the  Welsh 
people  of  all  degrees,  after  waiting  with  laudable 
patience  for  their  first  King  to  do  something  prac- 
tical on  their  behalf,  petitioned  Henry  the  Eighth  to 
abolish  the  disorders  under  which  half  their  country 
groaned  and  to  grant  that  representation  in  Parlia- 
ment as  yet  enjoyed  by  no  part  of  the  Principality, 
and  without  which  true  equality  could  not  exist. 
The  King  appointed  a  commission  to  carry  out  their 
wishes.  The  sources  from  which  the  new  counties 
took  their  names,  though  following  no  rule,  are 
obvious  enough.  Glamorgan,  the  old  Morganwg,  had 
been  practically  a  County  Palatine  since  Fitzhamon 
and  his  twelve  knights  seized  it  in  Henry  the  First's 
time,  that  is  to  say,  the  inferior  lordships  were  held 
in  fealty,  not  each  to  the  King  as  elsewhere,  but  to 
the  heirs  of  Fitzhamon,  who  for  many  generations 
were  the  Clares,  Earls  of  Gloucester,  having  their 
capital  at  Cardiff,  where  higher  justice  was  adminis- 
tered. Pembroke  was  something  of  the  same  sort, 
though  the  Flemish  element  made  it  differ  socially 
from  Glamorgan.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that 
that  promontory  of  Gower  in  the  latter  palatinate  was 
a  Flemish  lordship.  But  Pembroke  was  the  actual 
property  of  the  Crown  and  its  earls  or  lords  were 
practically  constables.  The  rest  of  the  Marches  (for 
this  term  signified  all  Wales  outside  the  Edwardian 


Conclusion  317 


counties)  had  no  such  definitions.  That  they  followed 
no  common  rule  was  obvious  enough.  Brecon  took 
its  name  from  the  old  lordship  of  Brecheniog  that 
Bernard  de  Newmarch  had  founded  in  Henry  the 
First's  time.  The  old  Melynydd,  more  or  less,  be- 
came Radnor,  after  its  chief  fortress  and  lordship. 
Montgomery  derived  its  shire  name  from  the  high- 
perched  castle  above  the  Severn,  Monmouth  from 
the  town  at  the  Monnow's  mouth.  Large  frag- 
ments of  the  Marches,  too,  were  tacked  on  to  the 
counties  of  Hereford  and  Shropshire,  the  Welsh 
border  as  we  know  it  to-day  being  in  many  places 
considerably  westward  of  the  old  line.  All  the 
old  lordship  divisions  with  the  privileges  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  their  owners  were  abolished,  and 
the  castles,  which  had  only  existed  for  coercive 
and  defensive  purposes,  began  gradually  from 
this  time  to  subside  into  those  hoary  ruins 
which  from  a  hundred  hilltops  give  the  beautiful 
landscape  of  South  Wales  a  distinction  that  is  prob- 
ably unmatched  in  this  particular  in  northern  Europe. 
County  government  was  uniformly  introduced  all 
over  Wales  and  the  harsh  laws  of  Glyndwr's  day,  for 
some  time  a  dead  letter,  were  erased  from  the  statutes. 
Parliamentary  representation  was  allotted,  though 
only  one  knight  instead  of  two  sat  for  a  shire 
and  one  burgess  only  for  all  the  boroughs 
of  a  shire ;  and  the  two  countries  became 
one  in  heart  as  well  as  in  fact.  Till  1535  the  eldest 
son  of  English  Kings,  as  Prince  of  Wales,  had 
been  all  that  the  name  implies.  Henceforth  it 
became  a  courtesy  title ;  and  one  may  perhaps  be 


3i8  Owen  Glyndwr 

allowed  a  regret,  having  regard  to  the  temperament  of 
a  Celtic  race  in  this  particular,  that  our  English 
monarchs  have  allowed  it  to  remain  so  wholly- 
divorced  from  all  Welsh  connection.  The  last  actual 
Prince  of  Wales  was  Henry  the  Eighth's  elder 
brother  Arthur,  who  died  at  the  then  ofificial  resi- 
dence of  Ludlow  Castle  a  few  weeks  after  his  mar- 
riage with  Catherine  of  Aragon. 

This  reminds  me  too  that  one  peculiarity  remained 
to  distinguish  the  administration  of  Wales  from  that 
of  England,  namely  that  famous  and  long-lived  in- 
stitution, the  "  Court  of  the  Marches."  This  has 
already  been  mentioned  as  introduced  by  Edward  the 
Fourth,  who  was  friendly  to  Wales,  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  outlaws  and  brigands.  It  was  confirmed  and 
its  powers  enlarged  by  Henry  the  Eighth's  Act,  and 
with  headquarters  at  Ludlow,  though  sitting  some- 
tirnes  at  Shrewsbury  and  Chester,  it  was  the  appeal 
for  all  important  Welsh  litigation.  Nor  was  it  in 
any  sense  regarded  as  a  survival  of  arbitrary  treat- 
ment. On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  convenience  to 
Welshmen,  who  could  take  cases  there  that  people 
in  North  Yorkshire,  for  instance,  would  have  to  carry 
all  the  way  to  Westminster.  For  a  long  time,  curi- 
ously enough,  its  jurisdiction  extended  into  the 
counties  of  Worcester,  Gloucester,  Hereford,  and 
Salop.  It  consisted  of  a  president  and  council  with 
a  permanent  staff  of  subordinate  officials.  The 
presidency  was  an  office  of  great  honour,  held 
usually  by  a  bishop  or  baron  of  weight  in  the 
country,  associated  with  the  two  justices  of  Wales  and 
that  of  Chester.     The  arrangement  seems  to  have 


Conclusion  3 1 9 


caused  general  satisfaction  till  the  reign  of  William 
the  Third,  when  the  growth  of  industry  and  popul- 
ation made  it  advisable  to  divide  Wales  into  circuits. 

The  petitions  addressed  from  the  Welsh  people 
to  Henry  praying  for  complete  fusion  with  England 
are  instructive  reading.  Marcher  rule  at  the  worst 
had  been  infamously  cruel,  at  the  best  inconvenient 
and  inequitable.  It  was  a  disgrace  to  the  civilisation 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  is  saying  a  great  deal. 
To  bring  criminals  to  justice  was  almost  impossible 
when  they  had  only  to  cross  into  the  next  lordship, 
whose  ruler,  being  unfriendly  perhaps  to  his  neigh- 
bour, made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  harbour  those 
who  defied  him.  The  still  martial  spirit  of  the 
Welsh  found  vent  when  wars  had  ceased  in  petty 
quarrels,  and  with  such  a  turbulent  past  it  did  them 
credit  that  they  recognised  how  sorely  even-handed 
justice  was  wanted  among  them. 

Lordship  Marchers  themselves  were  too  often  re- 
presented by  deputies,  and  something  like  the  abuses 
that  were  familiar  in  Ireland  in  more  recent  times 
owing  to  middlemen  added  to  the  confusion. 
According  to  local  custom  the  humbler  people  of 
one  lordship  might  not  move  eight  paces  from  the 
road  as  they  passed  through  a  neighbouring  territory. 
The  penalty  for  transgression  was  all  the  money 
they  had  about  them  and  the  joint  of  one  finger. 
If  cattle  strayed  across  the  lordship  boundary  they 
could  be  kept  and  branded  by  the  neighbouring  lord 
or  his  representatives. 

In  the  aforesaid  petitions  sent  up  to  Henry  VIII. 
the  petitioners  dwell  upon  their  loyalty  to  the  throne 


320  Owen  Glyndwr 

and  the  unhappy  causes  that  had  alienated  them 
from  it  in  the  past.  They  remind  him  of  how  they 
fought  in  France  for  Edward  III.,  and  of  their 
loyalty  to  Richard  II.,  which  was  the  sole  cause,  they 
declare,  of  their  advocacy  of  Glyndwr.  They  indig- 
nantly declare  that  they  are  not  "  runaway  Britons 
as  some  call  us,"  but  natives  of  a  country  which 
besides  defending  itself  received  all  those  who  came 
to  it  for  succour  at  the  period  alluded  to.  Resenting 
the  imputation  of  barrenness  sometimes  cast  on 
their  country,  they  declare  that  "  even  its  highest 
mountains  afford  beef  and  mutton,  not  only  to  our- 
selves, but  supply  England  in  great  quantity."  They 
recall  the  fact  that  they  were  Christians  while  the 
Saxons  were  still  heathen.  They  combat  those 
critics  who  describe  their  language  as  uncouth  and 
strange  and  dwell  on  its  antiquity  and  purity.  If  it 
is  spoken  from  the  throat,  say  these  petitioners, 
'■''  the  Spanish  and  Florentines  affect  that  pronun- 
ciation as  believing  words  so  uttered  come  from  the 
heart."  Finally,  with  presumably  unconscious  satire, 
they  allude  to  the  speech  of  the  northern  part  of 
the  island  as  "  a  kind  of  English." 

Henry  accomplished  these  great  reforms  in  the 
teeth  of  the  baronial  influence  of  the  whole  Marches, 
and  if  the  slaughter  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  had 
made  his  task  somewhat  easier,  he  should  have  full 
credit  for  achieving  a  piece  of  legislation  whose  im- 
portance as  an  epoch-marking  event  could  hardly 
be  exaggerated,  not  only  as  affecting  Wales  but  the 
four  powerful  counties  that  adjoined  it. 

To  create  and  organise  six  new  counties  out  of 


Conclusion  321 


chaos,  to  enfranchise  and  give  representation  to 
twelve,  to  permanently  attach  one  of  the  three 
tributary  kingdoms  to  the  British  Crown,  is  a  per- 
formance that  should  be  sufficient  to  lift  the  reign 
of  a  monarch  out  of  the  common  run.  Every 
schoolboy  is  familiar  with  the  figure  of  Henry  VIII. 
prancing  in  somewhat  purposeless  splendour  on  the 
Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  But  who  remembers 
the  assimilation  of  Wales  to  England  which  was  his 
doing  ? 

Wales,  though  small  in  population,  was  numeri- 
cally much  greater  in  proportion  to  England  than  is 
now  the  case.  To-day  she  is  a  twentieth,  then  per- 
haps she  was  nearly  a  seventh,  of  the  whole.  It  was  of 
vital  importance  that  her  people  should  be  satisfied 
and  well  governed.  The  accession  of  the  Tudors 
and  the  common  sense  of  their  second  monarch 
achieved  without  difficulty  what  might  have  been  a 
long  and  arduous  business. 

The  palmy  days  of  Elizabeth  saw  Wales,  like 
England,  advance  by  leaps  and  bounds.  The  native 
gentry,  the  tribesmen,  the  "  Boneddigion,"  always 
pressing  on  the  Norman  aristocracy,  now  came  again 
in  wholesale  fashion  to  the  front.  The  grim  castle 
and  the  fortified  manor  developed  into  the  country 
house.  Polite  learning  increased  and  the  upper 
classes  abandoned,  in  a  manner  almost  too  complete, 
the  native  tongue.  The  higher  aristocracy,  taking 
full  and  free  part  in  English  life,  became  by  degrees 
wholly  Anglicised,  and  the  habit,  though  very  gradu- 
ally, spread  downwards  throughout  the  whole  gentry 
class.     The  Reformation  had   been   accepted  with 


32  2  Owen  Glyndwr 

great  reluctance  in  Wales.  The  people  were  con- 
servative by  instinct  and  loyal  to  all  such  constituted 
authorities  as  they  held  in  affection.  They  would 
take  anything,  however,  for  that  very  reason,  from 
the  Tudors,  and  swallowed,  or  partly  swallowed,  a 
pill  that  was  by  no  means  to  their  liking.  In  Eliza- 
beth's time  the  Bible  and  Prayer-Book  were  trans- 
lated into  Welsh,  which  marked  another  epoch  in 
the  history  of  Wales  much  greater  than  it  at  first 
sounds.  It  was  not  done  without  opposition :  the 
desire  in  official  circles  to  stamp  out  the  native 
language,  which  became  afterward  so  strong,  had 
already  germinated,  and  it  was  thought  that  retain- 
ing the  Scriptures  and  the  Service  in  English  would 
encourage  its  acquisition  among  the  people.  The 
prospects,  however,  in  the  actual  practice  did  not 
seem  encouraging,  and  in  the  meantime  the  souls  of 
the  Welsh  people  were  starving  for  want  of  nourish- 
ment. The  Welsh  Bible  and  Prayer-Book  proved 
an  infinite  boon  to  the  masses  of  the  nation,  but  it 
did  more  than  anything  else  to  fix  the  native  tongue. 
Wales  readily  transformed  its  affection  for  the 
Tudors  into  loyalty  for  the  Stuarts.  The  Church, 
too,  was  strong — the  bent  of  the  people  being  averse 
to  Puritanism,  and  indeed  nowhere  in  Britain  did 
the  survivals  of  popery  linger  so  long  as  among  the 
Welsh  mountains.  Even  to-day,  amid  the  uncon- 
genial atmosphere  that  a  century  of  stern  Calvinism 
has  created,  some  unconscious  usages  and  expres- 
sions of  the  peasantry  in  remoter  districts  preserve 
its  traces.  The  Civil  War  found  Wales  staunch  al- 
most to  a  man  for  the    King.     There  were   some 


Conclusion  323 


Roundheads  in  the  English  part  of  Pembroke,  as 
was  natural,  and  a  few  leading  families  elsewhere 
were  found  upon  the  Parliamentary  side.  Such  of 
the  castles  as  had  not  too  far  decayed  were  fur- 
bished up  and  renewed  the  memories  of  their  stormy 
prime  under  circumstances  far  more  injurious 
to  their  masonry.  Harlech,  Chirk,  Denbigh,  Con- 
way, and  many  others  made  notable  defences.  The 
violent  loyalty  of  Wales  brought  down  upon  it  the 
heavy  hand  of  Cromwell,  though  himself  a  Welsh- 
man by  descent.  The  landed  gentry  were  ruined  or 
crippled,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  country  greatly 
thrown  back.  It  is  said  that  the  native  language 
took  some  hold  again  of  the  upper  classes  from  the 
fact  of  their  poverty  keeping  them  at  home,  whereas 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  flock  to  the  English 
universities  and  the  border  grammar  schools,  such 
as  Shrewsbury,  Chester,  or  Ludlow.  Welsh  poetry 
and  literature  expended  itself  in  abuse  of  that  Puri- 
tanism which  in  a  slightly  different  form  was  later 
on  to  find  in  Wales  its  chosen  home.  But  in  all  this 
there  was  of  course  little  trace  of  the  old  inter- 
national struggles.  The  Civil  War  was  upon  alto- 
gether different  lines.  The  attitude  of  Wales  was, 
in  fact,  merely  that  of  most  of  the  west  of  England 
somewhat  emphasised. 

Smitten  in  prosperity,  the  Principality  moved 
slowly  along  to  better  times  in  the  wake  of  England, 
under  the  benevolent  neutrality  of  the  later  Stuarts 
and  of  William  and  Anne.  It  still  remained  a  great 
stronghold  in  outward  things,  at  any  rate,  of  the 
Church,  and  kept  alive  what  Defoe,  travelling  there 


324  Owen  Glyndwr 

in  Anne's  reign,  calls  "  many  popish  customs," 
such  as  playing  foot-ball  between  the  services  on 
Sunday,  and  retiring  to  drink  at  the  public  house, 
which  was  sometimes,  he  noted,  kept  by  the  parson, 
while  even  into  the  eighteenth  century  funeral  pro- 
cessions halted  at  the  crossroads  and  prayed  for  the 
soul  of  the  dead.  The  Welsh  landowning  families 
were  numerous  and  poor,  proud  of  their  pedigrees, 
which  unlike  the  Anglo-Norman  had  a  full  thousand 
years  for  genealogical  facts  or  fancies  to  play  over. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  very  few  wealthy  landowners  in  Wales  who 
stood  out  above  the  general  level,  which  was  perhaps 
a  rude  and  rollicking  one.  There  was  no  middle  class, 
for  there  were  neither  trade  nor  manufactures  worth 
mentioning,  and  little  shifting  from  one  class  to  an- 
other. Hence  the  genealogy  was  simple,  and  conse- 
quently, perhaps,  more  accurate  than  in  wealthier 
societies.  The  mixture  of  English  blood  over  most 
of  the  country  was  almost  nil  among  the  lower 
class,  and  not  great  even  among  the  gentry. 

The  peasantry  still  submitted  themselves  without 
question  to  their  own  social  leaders,  and  the  latter, 
though  they  had  mostly  abandoned  their  own  lan- 
guage, still  took  a  pride  in  old  customs  and  tradi- 
tions, were  generous,  hospitable,  quarrelsome,  and 
even  more  addicted  to  convivial  pleasures  than  their 
English  contemporaries  of  that  class.  Defoe  was  at 
a  cocking  match  in  Anglesey  and  sat  down  to  dinner 
with  forty  squires  of  the  island.  "  They  talked  in 
English,"  he  says,  "but  swore  in  Welsh."  That 
the  Welsh  gentleman  of  the  present  day,  unlike  his 


Conclusion  325 


prototype  of  Scotland  or  Ireland,  shows  no  trace  worth 
mentioning  of  his  nationality  is  curious  when  one 
thinks  how  much  farther  removed  he  usually  is  in 
blood  from  the  Englishman  than  either.  It  should 
be  remembered,  however,  that  there  were  no  seats  of 
learning  in  Wales  such  as  Ireland  and  Scotland  pos- 
sessed. The  well-to-do  young  Welshman  went  nat- 
urally to  England  for  his  education,  even  in  days 
when  difficulties  of  travelling  were  in  favour  of  even 
indifferent  local  institutions. 

Surnames  became  customary  in  Wales  about  the 
time  of  the  Tudor  settlement ;  previously  only  a  few 
men  of  literary  distinction  had  adopted  them,  such 
as  Owen  Cyfylliog,  Prince  of  Upper  Powys,  Dafydd 
Hiraethog,  etc.  The  inconvenience  of  being  distin- 
guished only  by  the  names  of  his  more  recent  ances- 
tors connected  by  "ab"  or  *'ap"  was  found  intolerable 
by  the  Welshman  and  his  English  friends  as  life  got 
more  complex.  It  is  said  that  Henry  VIII.  was 
anxious  for  the  Welsh  landowners  to  assume  the 
name  of  their  estates  in  the  old  Anglo-Norman  fash- 
ion, and  it  is  a  pity  his  suggestion  was  not  followed, 
in  part  at  any  rate.  But  the  current  Christian  name 
of  the  individual  was  adopted  instead  and  saddled 
for  ever  on  each  man's  descendants.  So  a  language 
full  of  euphonious  place-names  and  sonorous  sounds 
shows  the  paradox  of  the  most  inconveniently  limited 
and  perhaps  the  poorest  family  nomenclature  in 
Europe. 

In  1735,  just  two  hundred  years  after  its  complete 
union  with  England,  began  the  movement  that  was  in 
time  to  change  all  Wales,  I  had  almost  said  the  very 


326  Owen  Glyndwr 

Welsh  character  itself.  This  was  the  Methodist  re- 
vival. All  Welshmen  were  then  Church  people. 
The  landed  families  for  the  most  part  supplied  the 
parishes  with  incumbents,  grouping  them  no  doubt 
as  much  as  possible  so  as  to  create  incomes  sufficient 
for  a  younger  son  to  keep  a  humble  curate  and  ruf- 
fle it  with  his  lay  relatives  over  the  bottle  and  in  the 
field.  The  peasantry  may  have  been  cheery  and 
happy,  but  they  were  sunk  in  ignorance.  They 
seem,  however,  to  have  been  good  churchgoers — the 
old  instinct  of  discipline  perhaps  surviving — but  the 
spiritual  consolation  they  received  there  was  lamenta- 
bly deficient,  and  the  Hanoverian  regime  was  making 
matters  steadily  worse.  Its  political  bishops  rarely 
came  near  their  Welsh  dioceses.  All  the  higher 
patronage  was  given  to  English  absentees,  for  the 
poor  Welsh  squires  could  be  of  little  political  service 
and  had  no  equivalent  wherewith  to  pay  for  a  dean- 
ery or  a  canon's  stall.  To  be  a  Welshman,  in  fact, 
was  then,  and  for  more  than  a  century  later  when 
the  landed  class  had  nearly  ceased  to  enter  the 
Church,  of  itself  a  bar  to  advancement.  The  mental 
alertness  and  religious  fervour,  however,  of  the 
Welsh  people  had  only  lain  dormant  under  circum- 
stances so  discouraging,  and  were  far  from  dead. 
They  presented  a  rare  field  for  the  efforts  of  the  re- 
ligious reformer,  though  it  seems  more  than  likely 
that  the  beauty  and  ritual  of  an  awakened  Anglican 
Church  would  have  appealed  to  their  natures  more 
readily  even  than  the  eloquence  of  the  Calvinistic 
school  that  eventually  led  them  captive.  The  Welsh 
people  were  imaginative,  reverential,  musical.   Their 


Conclusion  327 


devotion  to  the  old  faith  in  both  its  forms  was  suffi- 
ciently shown  by  the  pathetic  fidelity  with  which 
they  clung  to  their  mother  churches  till,  both  physi- 
cally and  mentally,  they  tumbled  about  their  ears. 

The  Methodist  revivalists  of  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury were,  as  everyone  knows,  for  the  most  part 
Churchmen.  Many  of  them  were  in  orders,  valiant 
and  devoted  men,  who  not  only  preached  in  the 
highways  and  hedges,  but  founded  schools  all  over 
Wales,  whose  peasantry  at  that  time  were  almost 
without  education.  They  suffered  every  kind  of 
persecution  and  annoyance  from  the  Church,  while 
the  country  clergy  headed  mobs  who  treated  them 
with  physical  violence.  No  effort  was  made  to  meet 
this  new  rival  upon  its  own  grounds, — those  of  minis- 
terial energy  and  spiritual  devotion, — but  its  expon- 
ents were  met  only  with  rotten  eggs.  The  bishops 
were  not  merely  absentees  for  the  most  part,  but 
from  1700  to  1870  they  were  consistently  English- 
men, ignorant  of  the  Welsh  tongue,  and  regarded  in 
some  sort  as  agents  for  the  Anglicising  of  Wales. 
Men  who  with  some  exceptions  were  destitute  of 
qualifications  for  their  office  found  themselves  in 
positions  that  would  have  taxed  abilities  of  the 
highest  order  and  all  the  energies  of  a  modern  pre- 
late. The  holders  of  Welsh  sees  laid  neither  such 
slender  stocks  of  ability  nor  energy  as  they  might 
possess  under  the  slightest  contribution  on  behalf  of 
Welsh  religion.  With  the  funds  of  the  Church, 
however,  they  observed  no  such  abstention,  but  sad- 
dled the  needy  Welsh  Establishment  with  a  host  of 
relatives  an4  friends.    As  for  themselves,  with  a  few 


328  Owen  Glyndwr 

notable  exceptions  they  cultivated  a  dignified  leisure, 
sometimes  at  their  palaces,  more  often  in  London 
or  Bath.  One  prelate  never  saw  his  diocese  at  all, 
while  another  lived  entirely  in  Cumberland.  With 
the  Methodist  revival  one  could  not  expect  them  to 
sympathise,  nor  is  it  surprising  that  their  good 
wishes  were  with  the  militant  pot-house  parsons  who 
were  in  favour  of  physical  force.  One  must  remem- 
ber after  all,  however,  that  this  was  the  Hogarthian 
period  ;  that  in  all  these  features  of  life  England  was 
at  its  worst ;  and  that  the  faults  of  the  time  were 
only  aggravated  in  Wales  by  its  aloofness  and  its 
lingual  complications.  The  Welsh  Methodist,  it  is 
true,  did  not  formally  leave  the  Church  till  181 1, 
but  by  that  time  Calvinism  had  thoroughly  taken 
hold  of  the  country,  and  the  Establishment  had  not 
only  made  no  spiritual  efforts  to  stem  the  tide,  but 
was  rapidly  losing  even  its  social  influence,  as  the 
upper  classes  were  ceasing  to  take  service  in  its 
ranks.  The  Welsh  parson  of  indifferent  morals  and 
lay  habits  had  hitherto  generally  been  of  the  land- 
owning class.  Now  he  was  more  often  than  not  of  a 
humbler  grade  without  any  compensating  improve- 
ment in  morals  or  professional  assiduity.  The  im- 
mense development  of  dissent  in  Wales  during  the 
last  century  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  The 
purifying  of  the  Welsh  Church  and  clergy  in  the  latter 
half  of  it  and  the  revival  of  Anglican  energy  within 
the  last  quarter  are  marked  features  of  modern  Welsh 
life.  We  have  nothing  to  do  here  with  the  probabili- 
ties of  a  success  so  tardily  courted.  But  it  is  of  pertin- 
ent interestto  considerthe  immense  changes  that  have 


Conclusion  329 


come  over  Wales  since,  let  us  say,  the  middle  of  the 
Georgian  period  ;  and  by  this  I  do  not  merely  mean 
those  caused  by  a  material  progress  common  to  the 
whole  of  Great  Britain.  For  there  is  much  reason  to 
think  that  the  character  of  the  Welsh  peasantry  has 
been  steadily  altering,  particularly  in  the  more  thor- 
oughly Welsh  districts,  since  they  fell  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Calvinistic  doctrines.  There  is  much 
evidence  that  the  old  Welshman  was  a  merry,  light- 
hearted  person,  of  free  conversation  and  addicted  to 
such  amusements  as  came  in  his  way ;  that  he  still 
had  strong  military  instincts,^  and  cherished  feudal 
attachments  to  the  ancient  families  of  Wales  even 
beyond  the  habit  of  the  time  among  the  English. 
This  latter  instinct  has  died  hard,  considering  the 
cleavage  that  various  circumstances  have  created  be- 
tween the  landed  gentry  and  the  peasantry.  Indeed 
it  is  by  no  means  yet  dead. 

The  drift  of  the  native  tongue,  too,  since  Tudor 
times  has  been  curious.  Its  gradual  abandonment 
by  the  landed  gentry  from  that  period  onwards,  with 
the  tenacity  with  which  their  tenants  for  the  most 
part  clung  to  it,  is  a  subject  in  itself.  The  resistance 
it  still  offers  in  spots  that  may  be  fairly  described  as 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  world's  civilisation  is  prob- 
ably the  most  striking  lingual  anomaly  in  Europe. 
Its  disappearance,  on  the  other  hand,  in  regions  in- 
tensely Welsh  is  worthy  of  note.  Radnorshire,  for 
instance,  penetrating  the  very  heart  of  the  Princi- 
pality, populated  almost  wholly  by  Cymry,  forgot 


*  Recent  events  have  demonstrated  that  this  spirit  is  still  far  from 
extinct. 


330  Owen  Glyndwr 

its  Welsh  before  anyone  now  living  can  remember. 
Bits  of  Monmouth,  on  the  other  hand,  long  reckoned 
an  English  county,  still  use  it  regularly.  It  is  the 
household  tongue  of  villagers  in  Flint,  who  can  see 
Liverpool  from  their  windows,  while  there  are  large 
communities  of  pure  Celts  in  Brecon  and  Carmarthen 
who  cannot  even  understand  it. 

The  great  coal  developments  in  South  Wales  have 
wholly  transformed  large  regions  and  brought  great 
wealth  into  the  country,  and  replaced  the  abundant 
rural  life  of  Glamorgan  and  its  ancient  families, 
Welsh  and  Norman,  with  a  black  country  that  has 
developed  a  new  social  life  of  its  own.  Slate  quarry- 
ing has  proved  a  vast  and  profitable  industry  among 
the  northern  mountains,  while  thousands  of  tourists 
carry  no  inconsiderable  stream  of  wealth  across  the 
Marches  with  every  recurring  summer.  But  neither 
coal-pits,  nor  quarries,  nor  tourists  make  much  im- 
pression on  the  Welsh  character  such  as  it  has  become 
in  the  North,  more  particularly  under  the  influence  of 
Calvinism,  and  very  little  upon  the  language  which 
fifty  years  ago  men  were  accustomed  to  regard  as 
doomed. 

The  history  of  Welsh  land  since  the  time  of  the 
Tudor  settlement  is  but  that  of  many  parts  of  Eng- 
land. Wales  till  this  century  was  distinguished  for 
small  properties  and  small  tenancies.  There  were 
but  few  large  proprietors  and  few  large  farmers.  In 
the  matter  of  the  former  particularly,  things  have 
greatly  altered.  The  small  squires  who  lived  some- 
what rudely  in  diminutive  manor-houses  have  been 
swallowed  up  wholesale  by  their  thriftier  or  bigger 


Conclusion  331 


neighbours,  but  the  general  and  now  regretted  tend- 
ency to  consolidate  farms  scarcely  touched  Wales, 
fortunately  for  that  country.  Save  in  a  few  excep- 
tional districts  it  is  a  land  of  small  working  farmers, 
and  in  most  parts  the  resident  agricultural  labourer 
as  a  detached  class  scarcely  exists. 

Few  countries  in  the  world  contain  within  the 
same  area  more  elements  of  prosperity  and  happiness 
than  modern  Wales,  and  fewer  still  are  so  fortunately 
situated  for  making  the  most  of  them.  Coal,  iron, 
slate,  and  other  minerals  in  great  abundance  are  vigor- 
ously exported  and  give  work  and  good  wages  to  a 
large  portion  of  the  population.  In  the  rural  districts 
a  thrifty  peasantry  are  more  widely  distributed  over 
the  soil,  to  which  they  are  peculiarly  attached,  than  in 
almost  any  part  of  Britain,  and  occupied  for  the 
most  part  in  the  more  hopeful  and  less  toilsome  of 
the  two  branches  of  agriculture,  namely,  that  of  stock- 
breeding.  Surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  sea, 
there  are  ready  facilities  for  the  trader,  the  sailor,  or 
the  fisherman.  The  romantic  scenery  of  the  country 
is  another  valuable  asset  to  its  people  and  brings  an 
annual  and  certain  income  that  only  one  small  corner 
of  England  can  show  any  parallel  to.  Education  is 
in  an  advanced  state,  while  the  humbler  classes  of 
society  have  resources  due  to  their  taste  for  music  and 
their  sentiment  for  their  native  language,  which  have 
no  equivalent  in  English  village  life. 

Even  those  strangely  constituted  minds  that  like 
to  dig  up  racial  grievances  from  the  turmoil  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  when  right  and  might  were  synonymous 
words    the   world    over,  and    profess   to   judge  the 


332  Owen  Glyndwr 


fourteenth  century  by  the  ethics  of  the  nineteenth, 
must  confess  that  the  forced  partnership  with  Eng- 
land has  had  its  compensations.  The  reasonable 
Welshman  will  look  back  rather  with  much  complais- 
ance on  the  heroic  and  prolonged  struggle  of  his 
ancestors  against  manifest  destiny,  remembering 
always  that  the  policy  of  the  Norman  kings  was 
an  obvious  duty  to  themselves  and  to  their  realm. 
Had  the  Ireland  of  that  day,  with  its  larger 
fighting  strength  and  sea-girt  territory,  possessed 
the  national  spirit  and  tenacious  courage  of  Wales, 
who  knows  but  that  she  might  have  vindicated 
her  right  to  a  separate  nationality  by  the  only  test 
admissible  in  mediaeval  ethics,  that  of  arms?  Geo- 
graphy at  any  rate  in  her  case  was  no  barrier  to  an 
independent  existence,  and  there  would  have  been 
nothing  illogical  or  unnatural  in  the  situation.  But 
geography  irrevocably  settled  the  destiny  of  Wales, 
as  it  eventually  did  that  of  Scotland.  If  the  condi- 
tions under  which  Wales  came  into  partnership 
were  different  and  the  date  earlier,  that,  again,  was 
partly  due  to  its  propinquity  to  the  heart  of  England. 
Yet  with  all  these  centuries  of  close  affinity  to  Eng- 
land, the  Welsh  in  many  respects — I  had  almost  said 
in  most — have  preserved  their  nationality  more  suc- 
cessfully than  the  Celts  of  either  Ireland  or  the 
North,  and  in  so  doing  have  lost  nothing  of  such 
benefits  as  modern  civilisation  brings. 


APPENDIX 

THE   BARDS 

TH  E  Bards  as  a  class  were  so  deeply  interwoven 
with  the  whole  life  of  ancient  Wales  and,  though 
long  shorn  of  most  of  their  ofificial  glory,  played 
so  prominent  a  part  in  the  rising  of  Glyndwr,  that  it 
seems  desirable  that  a  chapter  touching  on  the  sub- 
ject should  be  included  in  this  book.  Within  such  lim- 
its the  subject  can  only  be  treated  in  the  most  general 
and  elementary  manner.  Yet  such  treatment  is  ex- 
cusable from  the  fact  that  the  slenderest  and  most 
inefficient  description  of  Welsh  song  and  Welsh  sing- 
ers must  contain  matter  unknown  to  most  English 
readers.  I  imagine  that  few  of  these  would  resent 
being  asked  to  divest  their  minds  of  the  time-hon- 
oured notion  that  the  teaching  of  the  Druids  was  no- 
thing but  a  bloodthirsty  and  barbarous  superstition. 
At  any  rate,  Bardism  and  Druidism  being  practically 
the  same  thing,  one  is  obliged  to  remind  those  read- 
ers who  may  never  have  given  the  matter  any  atten- 
tion at  all,  that  among  the  ancient  Britons  of  the 
Goidel  stock  who  inhabited  most  of  Wales  and  the 
West  previous  to  the  Cymric  immigration,  Druid- 
ism was  the  fountain  of  law,  authority,  religion,  and, 

333 


334  Appendix 


above  all,  of  education.  The  Druids,  with  their  three 
orders,  were  a  caste  apart  for  which  those  who  were 
qualified  by  good  character  and  noble  birth  to  do  so, 
laboriously  trained  themselves.  They  decided  all 
controversies  whether  public  or  private,  judged  all 
causes,  from  murder  to  boundary  disputes,  and  ad- 
ministered both  rewards  and  punishments.  Those 
who  ventured  to  defy  them  were  excommunicated, 
which  was  equivalent  to  becoming  moral  and  social 
lepers. 

The  three  oraers  were  known  as  Druids,  Bards, 
and  Ovates.  The  first  were  priests  and  judges,  the 
second  poets ;  the  third  were  the  least  aristocratic, 
practised  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  were,  moreover,  a 
probationary  or  qualifying  order  through  which  can- 
didates for  the  other  two,  who  were  on  the  same  level 
of  dignity,  had  to  pass.  As  everyone  knows,  there 
was  an  Arch-Druid  of  the  Isle  of  Britain  who  had  his 
sanctuary  in  Anglesey.  But  it  is  a  matter  of  much 
less  common  knowledge  how  close  was  the  con- 
nection between  the  Druids  and  Christianity  in  the 
Roman  period  and  even  afterwards.  The  Romans, 
with  conquest  foremost  in  their  minds,  most  naturally 
aimed  at  the  native  rulers  of  the  people  and  made 
these  bardic  orders  the  objects  of  their  special  at- 
tack. Their  slaughter  on  the  banks  of  the  Menai  as 
described  by  Tacitus,  and  the  destruction  of  the 
Sacred  Groves  of  Mona,  are  among  our  familiar 
traditions. 

The  Druid  orders  fled  to  Ireland,  Brittany,  and 
elsewhere.  But  in  time,  when  the  Romans,  strong 
in  their  seats,  grew  tolerant,  the  exiles  returned  and 


The  Bards  335 


quietly  resumed,  in  West  Britain  at  any  rate,  some- 
thing like  their  old  positions. 

When  Christianity  pushed  its  way  from  the  West 
into  the  island,  the  bardic  orders,  unable  to  resist  it, 
seem  by  degrees  to  have  accepted  the  situation  and 
to  have  become  the  priests  of  the  new  faith,  as  they 
had  been  the  custodians  and  expounders  of  the  old. 
This  transition  was  the  less  difficult  seeing  that  the 
Druids  preached  all  the  ordinary  tenets  of  morality, 
and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  To  what  extent  the 
early  Christianity  of  western  Britain  was  tainted 
with  the  superstition  of  the  Druids  is  a  question  upon 
which  experts  have  written  volumes,  and  it  need  not 
detain  us  here,  A  notable  effort  was  made  in  the 
fourth  century  to  merge  Christianity,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  old  British  faith,  and  Morgan  or  Pelagius,  "  sea- 
born," of  Bangor  Iscoed  was  the  apostle  of  this  at- 
tempted reaction.  He  left  the  island  about  A.D.  400, 
and  his  converts  in  what  we  now  call  Wales  were 
numerous  and  active.  The  movement  is  historically 
known  as  the  "  Pelagian  heresy  "  and  has  some  ad- 
ditional importance  from  the  number  of  ecclesiastics 
that  came  from  over  the  sea  for  the  purpose  of 
denouncing  it. 

But  all  this  is  rather  the  religious  than  the  secular 
side  of  Bardism,  the  leading  feature  of  whose  teach- 
ing in  pre-Roman  days  had  been  the  committal  to 
memory  of  its  literature,  both  prose  and  verse. 
Writing  was  discountenanced,  as  the  possession  of 
these  stores  of  learning  thus  laboriously  acquired 
were  a  valuable  asset  of  the  initiated.  Three  was 
the  mystic  number  in  the  recitation  of  all  axioms 


33^  Appendix 


and  precepts,  for  many  of  these  were  committed  to 
writing  later  on  in  the  seventh  and  tenth  centuries, 
and  are  now  familiar  as  the  Welsh  "Triads." 

The  bards,  as  a  lay  order,  remained  of  great  im- 
portance. In  the  laws  of  Howel  Dda  (tenth  cent- 
ury) the  royal  bard  stands  eighth  among  the 
officers  of  the  State.  The  fine  for  insulting  him 
was  six  cows  and  twenty  silver  pennies.  His  value 
was  126  cows,  his  land  was  free,  and  he  had  the  use 
of  a  house.  His  noblest  duty  was  to  sing  '*  The 
Monarchy  of  Britain  "  at  the  head  of  his  chieftain's 
army  when  victorious.  The  number  of  songs  he 
had  to  sing  to  the  King  and  Queen  respectively  dur- 
ing the  social  hours  was  clearly  defined,  as  were  his 
claims  upon  each.  Among  the  latter  was  a  speci- 
fied portion  of  the  spoils  of  war,  a  chessboard  made 
from  the  horn  of  a  sea-fish  from  the  King,  and  a  ring 
from  the  Queen.  It  was  the  business  of  the  bards, 
moreover,  to  preserve  genealogies,  and  they  were 
practically  tutors  to  the  rising  generation  of  the 
aristocracy.  Every  family  of  position  in  Wales  had 
its  domestic  bard,,  while  below  these  there  were  a 
great  number  of  strolling  minstrels  who  visited  the 
dwellings  of  the  inferior  people,  from  whom  they  ex- 
acted gifts  of  money  ("  cymmorthau  "  )  as  well  as 
free  quarters. 

In  treating  of  individual  and  well-known  bards 
one  naturally  turns  for  a  beginning  to  the  sixth 
century,  when  that  famous  quartet,  Taliesin,  Merd- 
dyn,  Aneurin,  and  Llywarch  Hen,  flourished.  Sev- 
eral poems  either  actually  their  work  or  purporting 
to  be  so  are  extant.    To  linger  over  a  period  so  dim, 


The  Bards  337 


however  great  the  names  that  adorn  it,  would  be  out 
of  place  here.  That  all  four  were  great  kings  of 
song  in  their  time  is  beyond  doubt.  The  legends 
that  distinguish  them  are  comparatively  familiar : 
how  Taliesin  was  found  floating  in  a  leather  bottle 
in  Prince  Elphin's  salmon  weir  near  Aberdovey,  how 
Merddyn  as  a  boy  astonished  the  advisers  of  Vorti- 
gern  and  became  his  good  angel,  and  how  Llywarch 
Hdn,  at  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  age,  witnessed 
the  slaughter  of  the  last  of  his  four-and-twenty  sons 
in  battle  against  the  Saxons.  His  poem  on  the 
death  of  Cynddylan,  Prince  of  Powys,  seizes  the 
imagination,  not  somuch  fromthe  description  thepoet- 
warrior  gives  of  the  death  of  his  friend  and  his  own 
sons  in  a  decisive  combat  which  he  himself  took 
part  in,  but  from  the  almost  certain  fact  that  from 
the  top  of  the  Wrekin  he  saw  the  Saxons  destroy 
and  sack  Uriconium  ('*  the  white  town "),  whose 
ruins  are  such  a  striking  feature  among  the  sights 
of  Shropshire. 

From  these  four  giants  until  1080  there  is  little 
left  whereby  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  the  bards,  and 
no  great  record  of  their  names.  That  they  sang  and 
played  and  gave  counsel  and  kept  genealogies  is  be- 
yond question,  but  it  was  not  till  after  the  Norman 
conquest  of  England  that  they  began  to  leave  much 
behind  them  in  the  way  of  written  documents. 

When  Prince  Griffith  ap  Kynan  returned  from 
Ireland  to  Wales  and  the  poet  Meilir  arose  to  sing 
his  triumphs  and  good  qualities,  a  new  era  in  bardic 
history  may  be  said  to  have  commenced.  The  in- 
tellectual and  religious  revival  that  distinguished  the 


3  33  Appendix 


twelfth  century  in  Western  Europe  was  conspicuous 
in  Wales.  The  bards  were  no  longer  singing  merely 
of  battles,  but  of  nature  and  kindred  subjects,  with 
a  delicacy  that  showed  them  to  be  men  of  taste  and 
culture.  In  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  in  spite  of  war  and  conquest,  the  age  was 
a  golden  one  in  Welsh  song.  Between  eighty  and 
ninety  bards  of  this  period  have  left  poems  behind 
them  as  a  witness  of  their  various  styles  and  merits, 
while  there  are  no  literary  remains  whatever  of  very 
many  who  are  known  to  have  been  quite  famous  in 
their  day.  Thousands,  too,  of  popular  songs  must 
have  existed  that  the  jealousy  of  the  composers  or, 
more  probably,  the  price  of  parchment  consigned  to 
oblivion. 

**When  the  literary  revival  of  this  period  reached 
Wales,  its  people,"  says  Mr.  Stephens  in  the  Literature 
of  the  Kymri,  "  were  better  prepared  than  their  neigh- 
bours for  intellectual  effort."  "  An  order  of  bards  ex- 
isted, numerous  and  well  disciplined  ;  a  language  in  all 
its  fullness  and  richness  was  in  use  among  all  classes  of 
people,  and  as  a  necessary  consequence  their  literature 
was  superior,  more  copious,  and  richer  than  that  of  any 
contemporaneous  nation.  The  fabulous  literature  so 
prized  by  others  was  in  no  great  repute,  but  gave  way  to 
the  public  preference  for  the  more  laboured  and  artistic 
productions  of  the  bards." 

Several  Welsh  Princes  of  commanding  character 
and  unusual  abiHty  came  to  the  front  in  the  long 
struggle  with  the  Norman  power,  and  were  no 
unworthy  sources  of  bardic  inspiration.  Many  of 
them  aspired  themselves  to  literary  as  well  as  mar- 


The  Bards  339 


tial  fame,  of  whom  Owain  Cyfeiliog,  Prince  of 
Upper  Powys,  was  the  most  notable.  Poetry 
was  in  high  repute.  Eisteddfodau  were  held  period- 
ically with  much  ceremony  and  splendour,  and  were 
sometimes  advertised  a  year  in  advance,  not  only 
throughout  Wales  but  in  Ireland  and  other  portions 
of  the  British  Islands.  Not  poetry  alone  but  liter- 
ature generally  and  music,  of  course,  both  vocal 
and  instrumental,  were  subjects  of  competition, 
while  Rhys  ap  Tudor,  a  long-lived  and  distinguished 
Prince  of  South  Wales,  revived,  after  a  sojourn  in 
Brittany,  the  system  of  the  Round  Table.  To  Eng- 
lishmen the  long  list  of  bards  who  adorned  the 
period  between  the  Norman  arrival  and  Glyndwr's 
rising  would  be  mere  names,  but  even  to  those  who 
may  only  read  the  works  of  the  most  notable  in 
translations,  they  are  of  great  interest  if  only  as  a 
reflection  of  life  and  thought  at  a  time  when  Eng- 
land and  English  were  still  almost  silent. 

Gwalchmai,  the  son  of  a  distinguished  father,  Mei- 
lir,  already  mentioned,  was  among  the  first  of  the 
revived  school,  whose  work  is  regarded  by  Celtic 
scholars  as  of  the  first  quality.  His  love  of  nature  is 
prominent  in  many  of  the  poems  he  has  left : 

"  At  the  break  of  day,  and  at  evening's  close, 
I  love  the  sweet  musicians  who  so  fondly  dwell 
In  dear,  plaintive  murmurs,  and  the  accents  of  woe  ; 
I  love  the  birds  and  their  sweet  voices 
In  the  soothing  lays  of  the  wood." 

Owain  Gwynedd  was  the  hero-king  of  Gwalchmai's 
day.     His  repulse  of  an  attack  made  by  Henry  the 


340  Appendix 


Second's  fleet  under  the  command  of  an  unpatriotic 
Prince  of  Powys  in  Anglesey  is  the  subject  of  the 
bard's  chief  heroic  poem  : 

"  Now  thickens  still  the  frantic  war, 
The  flashing  death-strokes  gleam  afar, 
Spear  rings  on  spear,  flight  urges  flight, 
And  drowning  victims  plunge  to-night 
Till  Menai's  over-burthened  tide. 
Wide-blushing  with  the  streaming  gore. 
And  choked  with  carnage,  ebbs  no  more  ; 
While  mail-clad  warriors  on  her  side 
In  anguish  drag  their  deep-gash'd  wounds  along, 
And  'fore  the  King's  Red  chiefs  are  heap'd  the 
mangled  throng." 

Owain  Cyfeiliog,  a  Prince  of  Powys  in  the  end  of 
the  twelfth  century,  though  a  noted  warrior,  is  a 
leading  instance  of  a  royal  bard.  His  chief  poem^ 
The  Hirlds  Horn  (drinking-cup),  is  famous  wher- 
ever Welsh  is  spoken  : 

"  This  horn  we  dedicate  to  joy  ; 
Then  fill  the  Hirlas  horn,  my  boy, 
That  shineth  like  the  sea. 
Whose  azure  handles  tipped  with  gold 
Invite  the  grasp  of  Britons  bold, 
The  sons  of  liberty." 

This  is  one  of  the  longest  poems  of  the  twelfth 
century.  The  scene  is  the  night  after  a  battle,  and 
the  Prince  with  his  warriors  gathered  round  him  in 
the  banqueting-hall  sends  the  brimming  cup  to  each 
of  his  chieftains  successively  and  enumerates  their 


The  Bards  341 


respective  deeds.  A  leading  incident  in  the  poem  is 
when  Owen,  having  eulogised  the  prowess  of  two 
favourite  warriors  in  glowing  terms,  turns  to  their 
accustomed  seats,  and,  finding  them  vacant,  suddenly 
recalls  the  fact  that  they  had  fallen  in  the  battle  of 
the  morning : 

"  Ha  !  the  cry  of  death — And  do  I  miss  them  ! 
O  Christ  !  how  I  mourn  their  catastrophe  ! 
O  lost  Moreiddig — How  greatly  shall  I  need  thee  ! " 

A  most  suggestive  poem  by  another  Prince  is  a 
kind  of  summary  of  his  progress  through  his  do- 
minions from  the  Ardudwy  mountains, 

"  Fast  by  the  margin  of  the  deep 
Where  storms  eternal  uproar  keep," 

to  the  hills  above  Llangollen  where  he  proposes  "  to 
taste  the  social  joys  of  Yale."  This  is  Howel,  the 
illegitimate  son  of  Owain  Gwynedd,  who  seized  and 
held  for  two  years  his  father's  kingdom.  Though 
so  strenuous  a  warrior,  his  poems  are  rather  of  love 
and  social  life.  He  sings  with  much  feeling  of  the 
joys  of  Wales  ;  her  fair  landscape,  her  bright  waters 
and  green  vales,  her  beauteous  women  and  skim- 
ming seagulls,  her  fields  clothed  with  tender  trefoil, 
her  far-reaching  wilds,  and  plenteousness  of  game. 
Himself  a  successful  stormer  of  castles,  there  is  some- 
thing richly  suggestive  in  the  action  of  a  man  laying 
down  the  torch  and  bloody  sword  and  taking  up  the 
pen  to  describe  his  havoc  : 

"  The  ravens  croaked  and  human  blood 
In  ruddy  streams  poured  o'er  the  land  ; 


342  Appe^idix 


There  burning  houses  war  proclaimed  ; 
Churches  in  flames  and  palace  halls  ; 
While  sheets  of  fire  scale  the  sky, 
And  warriors  '  On  to  battle  ! '  cry." 

Then  the  author  wholly  changes  his  mood  : 

"  Give  me  the  fair,  the  gentle  maid, 
Of  slender  form,  in  mantle  green  ; 
Whose  woman's  wit  is  ever  staid, 
Subdued  by  virtue's  graceful  mien. 
Give  me  the  maid,  whose  heart  with  mine 
Shall  blend  each  thought,  each  hope  combine  ; 
Then,  maiden  fair  as  ocean's  spray, 
Gifted  with  Kymric  wit's  bright  ray, 
Say,  am  I  thine  ? 
Art  thou  then  mine  ? 
What  !  silent  now  ? 
Thy  silence  makes  this  bosom  glow. 
I  choose  thee,  maiden,  for  thy  gifts  divine  ; 
'T  is  right  to  choose — then,  fairest,  choose  me  thine." 

There  is  much  misunderstanding  as  to  the  fashion 
in  which  the  bards  were  treated  by  Edward  the  First. 
During  war  the  leading  minstrels  were  naturally 
identified  with  the  patrons  whose  banners  they 
followed  and  whose  praises  they  sang;  but  the 
statement  that  they  were  put  to  death  as  bards  rests 
on  wholly  secondary  authority  and  seems  doubtful. 
Stringent  laws  were  certainly  made  against  the  lower 
order  of  minstrels  who  wandered  homeless  through 
the  country,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  devised  as 
much  for  the  protection  of  the  common  people,  who 
were  called  on  to  support  them,  as  against  the  men 


The  Bards  343 


themselves,  who  were  regarded  by  the  authorities  as 
mendicants  and  idlers.  The  superior  bards,  who  kept 
strictly  to  the  houses  of  the  great,  were  probably 
not  often  interfered  with.  These,  though  they  had 
regular  patrons  and  fixed  places  of  abode,  made  ex- 
tended tours  from  time  to  time  in  which  there  seems 
to  have  been  no  special  distinction  between  North 
and  South  Wales.  The  hatred  of  the  bards  towards 
England  was  a  marked  feature  of  their  time,  and 
was  so  consistent  that  though  many  Welsh  princes, 
in  their  jealousy,  lent  their  swords,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  invader,  no  bards,  so  far  as  one  knows,  turned 
against  their  countrymen.  For  generations  they 
prided  themselves  in  being  intellectually  superior  to 
the  Saxon.  They  also  saw,  after  the  Norman  con- 
quest, the  English  race  despised  and  held  down  by 
their  conquerors,  and  a  species  of  serfdom  in  use 
among  the  Saxons  which  had  no  prototype  in  their 
own  country.  The  ordinary  bards,  however,  had  be- 
yond all  doubt  sacrificed  much  of  their  old  independ- 
ence and  become  the  creatures  of  their  patrons  and 
ready  to  sell  their  praises  for  patronage.  Even  the 
respectable  Meilir  confesses : 

"  I  had  heaps  of  gold  and  velvet 
From  frail  princes  for  loving  them." 

Llewelyn  the  Great,  the  second,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
three  Llewelyns,  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  Bardic 
literature  and  was  the  subject  of  much  stirring 
eulogy : 

"  None  his  valour  could  withstand, 
None  could  stem  his  furious  hand. 


344  Appendix 


Like  a  whirlwind  on  the  deep, 
See  him  through  their  squadrons  sweep. 
Then  was  seen  the  crimson  flood, 
Then  was  Offa  bathed  in  blood, 
Then  the  Saxons  fled  with  fright, 
.Then  they  felt  his  royal  might. 

Dafydd  Benvras,  the  author  of  this  stanza,  left  many 
poems,  and  later  on  Griffith  ap  Yr  Ynad  Goch  wrote 
what  is  regarded  as  among  the  finest  of  Welsh  odes, 
on  the  death  of  the  last  Llewelyn,  laying  the  blame 
of  that  catastrophe  on  the  wickedness  of  his  country- 
men : 

"  Hark  how  the  howling  wind  and  rain 
In  loudest  symphony  complain  ; 
Hark  how  the  consecrated  oaks, 
Unconscious  of  the  woodman's  strokes, 
With  thundering  crash  proclaim  he  's  gone, 
Fall  in  each  other's  arms  and  groan. 
Hark  !  how  the  sullen  trumpets  roar. 
See  !  how  the  white  waves  lash  the  shore. 
See  how  eclipsed  the  sun  appears, 
See  !  how  the  stars  fall  from  their  spheres, 
Each  awful  Heaven-sent  prodigy. 
Ye  sons  of  infidelity  ! 
Believe  and  tremble,  guilty  land. 
Lo  !  thy  destruction  is  at  hand." 

After  the  Edwardian  conquest  in  1284  the  note  of 
the  bards  sensibly  softened  and  attuned  itself  much 
more  generally  to  love  and  nature.  The  song-birds 
particularly  were  in  great  request  as  recipients  of 
poetic  addresses  and  confidences. 


The  Bards  345 


"  And  thou,  lark, 
Bard  of  the  morning  dawn, 
Show  to  this  maid 
My  broken  heart." 

While  the  same  singer,  Rhys  Goch,  describes  thus  the 
light  tread  of  his  ladylove : 

"  As  peahens  stride  in  sun-ray  heat. 
See  her  the  earth  elastic  tread  ; 
And  where  she  walks,  neath  snow-white  feet 
Not  e'en  a  trefoil  bends  its  head. 

The  latter  part  of  the  14th  century  was  extremely 
prolific  in  poetry  which,  with  some  notable  excep- 
tions, is  regarded  rather  as  showing  a  good  general 
level  than  as  producing  any  masterpieces.  Dafydd 
ap  Gwilym,  the  Welsh  Ovid,  is  of  course  a  striking 
exception.  Over  250  of  his  poems  are  preserved, 
while  Lewis  Glyncothi,  Gutyn  Owain,  lolo  Goch, 
Glyndwr's  bard,  and  two  or  three  more  have  left  be- 
hind them  something  like  300  others.  Dafydd  ap 
Gwilym,  who  was  buried  at  Strata  Florida,  holds  one 
of  the  highest  places  in  Cymric  literature.  It  is  as  a 
love  poet  that  he  is  chiefly  distinguished,  but  his  love 
of  nature  and  his  own  beautiful  country  finds  sole  ex- 
pression in  many  of  his  productions.  His  ode  to 
Fair  Glamorgan,  written  from  **the  heart  of  wild, 
wild  Gwynedd,"  asking  the  summer  to  be  his 
messenger,  is  regarded  as  one  of  his  best.  In  trans- 
lation it  is  interesting  as  a  contemporary  picture, 
though  a  poetic  one,  of  the  richest  Welsh  province. 

**  Radiant  with  corn  and  vineyards  sweet, 
And  lakes  of  fish  and  mansions  neat, 


34^  Appendix 


With  halls  of  stone  where  kindness  dwells, 
And  where  each  hospitable  lord 
Heaps  for  the  stranger  guest  his  board, 
And  where  the  generous  wine-cup  swells. 
With  trees  that  bear  the  luscious  pear, 
So  thickly  clustering  everywhere. 
Her  lofty  woods  with  warblers  teem, 
Her  fields  with  flowers  that  love  the  stream, 
Her  valleys  varied  crops  display. 
Eight  kinds  of  corn  and  three  of  hay  ; 
Bright  parlour  with  her  trefoiled  floor  ! 
Sweet  garden,  spread  on  ocean  shore." 

Quotations  have  already  been  made  in  the  body 
of  this  book  from  lolo  Goch's  ode  to  Glyndw^r,  and 
throughout  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  Lewis  Glyncothi, 
Gutyn  Owain,  and  Tudor  Aled  continued  to  sing  of 
contemporary  events. 

The  leading  charge  against  Cymric  poetry  is  that 
it  is  too  prone  to  elaborate  the  mere  art  of  versifica- 
tion at  the  expense  of  fire  and  animation.  Allit- 
eration v^^as  of  course  the  chief  method  of  ornament, 
though  the  rhyming  of  the  terminal  syllable  was  by 
no  means  always  ignored.  But,  speaking  generally, 
skill  in  the  arrangement  of  words  according  to  cer- 
tain time-honoured  conventions  occupied  more  than 
an  equitable  share  in  the  making  of  Welsh  verse.  A 
tendency  to  put  mere  sound  above  feeling  and  emo- 
tion did  much  to  cramp  it,  and  often  forced  it  into  man- 
nerisms and  affectations  that  would  rather  destroy 
than  enhance  the  intrinsic  merits  of  a  composition. 

"  Beyond  all  rhetorical  ornaments,"  says  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  "  they  preferred  the  use  of  alliteration  and  that 


The  Bards  347 


kind  more  especially  which  repeats  the  first  letters  or 
syllables  of  words.  They  made  so  much  use  of  this 
ornament  in  every  finished  discourse  that  they  thought 
nothing  elegantly  spoken  without  it." 

Mr.  Stephens,  by  way  of  illustration,  points  out 
poems  by  the  greater  bards  which  from  the  first  line 
to  the  last  commence  with  the  same  letter.  He  also 
attributes  the  extraordinary  elaboration  in  structure 
with  which  fashion  was  prone  to  cumber  Welsh 
poetry  to  a  desire  for  increasing  the  difficulties  of 
composition  and  in  consequence  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  bardic  order.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  a 
country  where  war  was  the  chief  business  of  life  it 
should  be  by  far  the  favourite  subject  of  the  minstrel, 
particularly  when  one  remembers  that  the  celebration 
of  his  employer's  exploits  or  intended  exploits  was 
the  chief  source  of  the  domestic  poet's  livelihood- 
The  wars  of  Glyndwr  stirred  again  the  old  fighting 
note  which  after  the  Edwardian  conquest  had  given 
way  in  a  great  measure  to  gentler  themes.  The  old 
laws  against  the  bards,  enunciated  by  Edward  I., 
now  for  long  a  dead  letter,  were  renewed,  but  after 
this  final  submission  of  Wales  it  is  doubtful  if  they 
continued  to  have  much  meaning,  particularly  amid 
the  chaos  of  the  ensuing  Wars  of  the  Roses,  when 
the  bards  most  certainly  did  their  full  share  of  singing. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  music  which  both  in  early 
and  mediaeval  Wales  played  such  a  prominent  part 
in  the  national  life.  The  harp  was  always  the  true 
national  instrument,  though  the  pipe  or  bagpipe  was 
well  known  and  in  frequent  use ;  but  it  was  never 


348  Appendix 


really  popular,  as  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  this 
was  surely  a  valuable  testimony  to  the  superior  cult- 
ure of  the  Welsh  musicians.  Griffith  ap  Kynan, 
King  of  North  Wales  about  iicx),  already  men- 
tioned, introduced  it  into  the  Eisteddfod  as  the 
result  of  his  Irish  education.  The  pipes  had  hitherto 
been  forbidden,  and  the  result  at  the  celebrated 
Eisteddfod  at  Caerwys  was  that  Griffith's  prize  of  a 
silver  pipe  went  to  a  Scotsman.  The  Welsh,  in  short, 
despised  the  instrument.  Lewis  Glyncothi  has 
left  an  amusing  satire  on  a  piper.  He  finds  himself 
in  Flint  at  an  English  marriage,  where  the  guests 
would  have  none  of  him  or  his  harp,  but  *'  bawled 
for  Will  the  Piper,  low  born  wretch  "  who  comes  for- 
ward as  best  he  may,  "  unlike  a  free  enobled  man.'* 

"  The  churl  did  blow  a  grating  shriek. 
The  bag  did  swell,  and  harshly  squeak, 
As  does  a  goose  from  nightmare  crying, 
Or  dog  crushed  by  a  chest  when  dying, 
This  whistling  box's  changeless  note 
Is  forced  from  turgid  veins  and  throat ; 
Its  sound  is  like  a  crane's  harsh  moan, 
Or  like  a  gosling's  latest  groan." 

Giraldus,  half  Welshman  himself,  writing  after  his 
extended  tour  through  Wales,  about  1200,  with 
Archbishop    Baldwin,    says : 

"  The  strangers  who  arrived  in  the  morning  were  en- 
tertained until  evening  with  the  conversation  of  young 
women  and  with  the  music  of  the  harp,  for  in  this  coun- 
try almost  every  house  is  provided  with  both.  Such  an 
influence  had  the  habit  of  music  on  the  mind  and  its 


The  Bards  349 


fascinating  powers,  that  in  every  family  or  in  every  tribe, 
they  esteemed  skill  in  playing  on  the  harp  beyond  any 
kind  of  learning.  Again,  by  the  sweetness  of  their  musi- 
cal instruments  they  soothe  and  delight  the  ear.  They 
are  rapid  yet  delicate  in  their  modulation,  and  by  the 
astonishing  execution  of  their  fingers  and  their  swift 
transitions  from  discord  to  concord,  produce  the  most 
pleasing  harmony." 

The  part-singing  of  the  Welsh  seems  also  to  have 
greatly  struck  Giraldus  in  contrast  to  the  unison  in 
which  he  heard  the  musicians  of  other  nations 
perform. 

To  draw^  the  line  betw^een  the  bard  and  musician 
would  be  of  course  impossible.  Many  writers  of 
verse  could  only  declaim  ;  some  could  sing  to  their 
own  accompaniment.  The  mass  of  musicians,  how 
ever,  we  may  take  it,  belonged  to  the  lower  grade  of 
wandering  bards,  who  played  first,  as  we  have  seen, 
upon  the  national  instrument,  the  harp,  as  well  as 
upon  the  pipe  and  "  crwth  "  (a  kind  of  rude  violin). 

The  tone  of  morality  was  certainly  not  high  among 
the  mediaeval  Welsh  bards.  They  had  long  lost  all 
touch  with  the  order  of  the  priesthood,  and  indeed 
monks  and  poets  had  become  almost  as  a  matter  of 
course  inimical  to  one  another.  The  latter,  too, 
maintained  a  steady  hatred  of  the  Saxon  that  was  al- 
most creditable,  seeing  how  often  their  masters,  for 
the  sake  of  interest  or  revenge,  took  up  arms  against 
their  fellow-countrymen. 

It  is  sufficiently  difficult  merely  to  touch,  and  that 
in  the  slightest  manner,  so  vast  a  subject  as  this. 
In  recognising  the  insufficiency  of  such  an  attempt, 


350  Appendix 


I  am  almost  thankful  that  the  period  of  Glyndwr  and 
the  succeeding  turmoil  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  puts 
a  reasonable  limit  to  my  remarks.  For  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  when  Wales  settled  down  under  the 
Tudors  to  its  happy  and  humdrum  existence,  the 
martial  attitude  of  the  bards  as  feudal  appanages 
and  national  firebrands  altogether  ceased.  Welsh 
poets  hereafter  were  private  individuals,  their  song 
ceased  for  the  most  part  to  be  of  war ;  nor  was  the 
Saxon  or  the  Lloegrian  any  longer  an  object  of  in- 
vective. The  glory  of  this  new  United  Britain  to 
which  they  belonged  was  not  without  its  inspiration, 
but  it  has  been  by  no  means  a  leading  note  in  Welsh 
verse,  which,  speaking  generally,  has  since  in  this 
particular  sung  upon  a  minor  key. 


INDEX 


Aber,  60,  72 
Aberdaron,  201,  264-269 
Aberffraw,  25 
Abergavenny,  143 
Abergavenny,  Lord  of,  227 
Aberystwith,  231,  284-293 
A  Court,  Sir  Francis,  262,  286 
Adam   of   Usk,    130,    133,    150, 

156,  159,  163 
Albans,  St.,  193 
Anarawd,  20 
Anglesey,  70,  71,  75.  127,   135, 

217,  218,  279 
Anne,  Queen,  323 
Arundel,  Earl  of,  99,  177,  298 
Arvon,  cantref  of,  295 
Asaph,  St.,  66 
Audley,  Lord,  68,  86,  216 
Augustine,  St.,  8,  9,  10 
Avignon  Pope,  the,  234,  269-271, 

299 

B 

Baldwin,  Archbishop,  48 

Bangor,  57,  75,  148,  299 

Bangor  Iscoed,  6 

Bardolph,  Earl,  252,  264,  268 

Bards,  the,  123,  134,  143,  163 

Bardsey,  Isle  of,  53 

Barmouth,  118 

Beau  champ,   Earl   of  Warwick, 

195,  229,  290 
Beaufort,  Earl,  128 
Beaumaris,  279 
Berkeley,  James,  Lord,  290 


Berkhampstead,  170,  180 
Berkrolles,  Sir  A.,  231 
Berkrolles,   Sir  Laurence,   281- 

283 
Berwick,  203,  204 
Bifort,  Llewelyn,  234,  251,  252, 

279,  299 
Blanche,  Princess,  168,  169 
Bleddyn  ap  Cynvyn,  85 
Bolde,  John,  148-152,  219 
Bramham  Moor,  battle  of,  268 
Bran  the  Blessed,  232 
Brecon,  36,  142,  193,  194,  221, 

317 
Breiddon  Hills,  17 
Bristol,    212 ;    sailors    of,    220, 

287,  288 
Brith,  David,  134 
Bromfield,  Lordship  of,  106 
Browe,  Sir  Hugh,  141 
Bryn  Owen,  battle  of,  245 
Brynsaithmarchog,  157 
Builth,  152 


Cader  Idris,  141 
Cadvan,  King,  16 
Cadwallader,  231 
Cadwgan  of  the  battle-axe,  260 
Caer  Drewyn,  122,  144 
Caerleon,  2,  215,  245 
Caerphilly,  215-217,  245 
Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  73, 

79 
Cardiff,  214,  215,  316 
Cardigan,  5,  71,  79,  142,  149.  ^5^ 


351 


352 


Index 


Carew,  Thos.,  Earl,  191,  192,  202 
Carmarthen,  28,  71,  79,  142,  152, 

191,  192,    197,    198,   212-217, 

256,  287 
Carnarvon,    78,    86,    128,     139, 

148,  190,  247 
Carnarvon^  Record  of,  240,  287, 

301 
Carte,  303 
Charles,  King  of  France,    224, 

225 
Charltons,   the,    146,    217,   229, 

230,  297 
Cheshire,  315 
Chester,  i,  28,  32,  43,  44,  135, 

140,  143,  144,  177,  203,  210, 

302,  318 
Chirk,  44,  87,  106,  155,  323 
Clares,  the,  316 
Clear's,  St.,  191 
Clwyd,  Vale  of,  18-20,  77,  135, 

312 
Coed  Eulo,  43 
Coity  Castle,  37,  231,  259,  260, 

275 
Colwyn,  98 

Colwyn  ap  Tangno,  232 
Conway,   52,  61,  64-66,   75-78, 

97,  98,  138-140,  218,  219,  323 
Cornwall,  Sir  John,  217 
Cornwall,  conquest  of,  16 
Corwen,  44,  106,  122 
Courtenay,  Richard,  291 
Courtenays,  the,  214 
Craig-y-dorth,  battle  of,  229 
Creton,  M.,  121 
Criccieth  Castle,  62,  190,  219 
Croesau  Common,  ni 
Crofts,  104 
Cunedda,  5 

Cwm  Hir  Abbey,  53,  145 
Cymmer  Abbey,  166 
Cynddylan,  7 
Cynllaeth,  88 
Cyrnwigen,  223 


Dafydd  ap  Griffith,  71,  72, 74,  76 

Dafydd  ap  Gwilim,  149,  235 


Dafydd  ap  Llewelyn,  61-65 

Dafydd  ap  Owen  Gwynedd,  47 

Dafydd  ap  Sinion,  232 

Danbury  church,  164 

Danes,  the,  17,  28 

Daron,  David,  Dean  of  Bangor, 

251,  252,  264,  279 
David,  St.,  5 

David's,  St.,  12,  28,  33,  48,  80 
Dean,  Forest  of,  287 
Dee  River,  88,  91,  122 
Defoe,  323,  324 
Deganwy  Castle,  57,  64 
Deheubarth,  description  of,  14 
Denbigh,  72,  118,  135,  141,  323 
Denbigh  County,  78 
Deorham,  6 

Despencer,  Lady,  217,  242-244 
Dinas  Bran,  86,  87,  107,  118 
Dolbadarn  Castle,  66,  157,  301 
Dolgelly,  141,  223 
Dolwyddelan  56,  301 
Doncaster,  125 
Don,  Henry,  190,  225 
Douglas.   Lord,    181,    182,  203- 

206,  264 
Dovey,  the,  142,  143 
Durham,  125 

Dynevor  Castle,  185,  190,  202 
Dysanni  River,  280 


E 


Eadgar,  King,  26 

Edeyrnion,   Vale  of,    102,    123, 

240 
Edinburgh,  126 
Edward  I.,    67,  69-71,   75,   78, 

79.  213 
Edward  II.,  80 
Edward  III.,  285 
Edward  IV.,  313 
Einion,  34,  35 
Eleanor,  Queen,  80 
Elen,  Glyndwr's  mother,  88 
Elfreton,  Henry  de,  138 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  321 
Elizabeth  Scudamore,  105 
Ellis,  Sir  Henry,  iSy 


Index 


353 


Eltham,  palace  of,  242 

Emma,  wife  of  Dafydd  ap  Owen 

Gwynedd,  47 
Emma,  wife  of  Lord  Audley,  86 
Ethelfred,  King,  10 


Faireford,  John,  193 
Fitzhamon,  35-37,  316 
Flemings,  the,  40,  41,  144,  145 
Flint,  43,  45,  78,  98,  99,  330 
France,  Charles,  King   of,   224, 

225,  299 
Franciscans,  their  plot,  169 


Gam,  Davy,  221-223,  298,  302 

Gascoine,  Judge,  252 

Giraldus  Cambrensis,  11,  47- 
52,  215 

Glamorgan  33-35,  175,  214, 
245,  246,  251,  252,  259,  277, 
278,  303,  316-330 

Gloucester,  Earl  of,  75,  291,  318 

Glyncothe,  Lewis,  306 

Glyndwr,  his  birth,  and  legends 
connected  with  it,  82,  83  ;  as  a 
popular  hero,  84  ;  descent,  87, 
88  ;  place  of  birth,  89  ;  first 
recorded  appearance,  90 ;  his 
designation,  91  ;  his  youth, 
Q2,  93 ;  esquire  to  Boling- 
broke,  94 ;  supposed  adher- 
ence to  Richard  II.,  95,  99; 
home  life,  100-103  ;  wife  and 
family,  104,  105  ;  estate  and 
hospitality,  106,  107 ;  quarrel 
with  Grey  of  Ruthin,  112; 
refused  a  hearing,  113  ;  further 
persecution  by  Grey,  114,  115  ; 
attacked  by  Earls  Grey  and 
Talbot  and  escapes,  120  ;  heads 
the  Welsh  forces,  1 22  ;  support- 
ed by  the  bards,  123  ;  declared 
Prince  of  Wales,  124  ;  eludes 
King  Henry's  forces,  127  ;  ex- 
cluded from  pardon,  128  ;  win- 
ters at  Glyndyfrdwy,  131,  132  ; 


attitude  towards  Hotspur  and 
Prince  Henry,  135,  136  ;  turns 
his  army  southwards,  138  ; 
occupies  Plinlimmon,  142,  143; 
gains  a  victory  at  Mynydd 
Hyddgant,  144  ;  ravages  South 
and  Mid- Wales,  145,  146  ; 
creates  panic  in  England,  147; 
frustrates  Henry's  second  inva- 
sion, 149,  150 ;  all-powerful 
in  Wales,  151  ;  goes  to  Carnar- 
von, 152  ;  meeting  with  Hot- 
spur, 153,  154  ;  winters  again 
at  Glyndyfrdwy,  155  ;  at- 
tempts the  capture  of  Harlech, 
156  ;  captures  Grey  and  ran- 
soms him,  156-158  ;  sends 
letters  to  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land, 159,  160 ;  destroys  St. 
Asaph,  164 ;  adventure  with 
Howel  Sele,  165-168  ;  leaves 
North  Wales,  170  ;  battle  of 
Pilleth  and  capture  of  Ed- 
mund Mortimer,  171,  172  ;  de- 
vastates Glamorgan,  175  ;  his 
doings  in  Carnarvonshire,  176  ; 
attacks  west  coast  castles,  177; 
established  reputation  as  a 
magician,  178  ;  baffles  Henry's 
third  attempt  to  crush  him, 
180;  marries  his  daughter  to 
Mortimer,  183  ;  his  affairs 
prospering,  185  ;  invests  west 
coast  castles,  188  ;  his  houses 
at  Sycherth  and  Glyndyfrdwy 
destroyed  by  Prince  Henry, 
186-188  ;  activity  in  South 
Wales,  190  ;  captures  Car- 
marthen, 191  ;  checked  by 
Carew,  192  ;  creates  alarm  in 
England,  193  ;  consults  a 
soothsayer,  197  ;  meditates  in- 
vasion of  England,  198  ;  col- 
lision with  the  Percys,  201  ; 
causes  of  his  absence  from  bat- 
tle of  Shrewsbury,  202  ;  visits 
North  Wales,  209  ;  invades 
Herefordshire,  21 1  ;  baffles 
Henry  again,  211-214;  takes 
border   castles,   215  ;    receives 


354 


Index 


Gly  ndwr —  Continued. 

aid  from  the  French,  217  ;  his 
Anglesey  troops,  218  ;  attacks 
Carnarvon,  218  ;  captures  Har- 
lech, 220 ;  holds  a  parliament 
at  Machynlleth,  221  ;  arrests 
Davy  Gam,  222  ;  holds  a 
council  at  Dolgelly,  223 ;  sends 
envoys  to  the  King  of  France, 
224 ;    letter   to    Henry   Don, 

225  ;   active  on  the  Marches, 

226  ;  defeat  at  Mynydd-cwm- 
du  and  victory  at  Craig-y- 
dorth,  229 ;  holds  court  at 
Llanbadarn  and  Harlech,  231- 
234  ;  situation  in  1405,  237- 
242  ;  attempt  to  carry  off  the 
young  Earl  of  March,  242  ; 
victory  at  Pant-y-wenol,  245  ; 
defeat  at  Grosmont,  247 ;  de- 
feat at  Pwll-Melyn  and  death 
of  his  brother,  249  ;  sends  en- 
voys to  the  North,  250 ;  his 
supposed  wanderings,  252, 
253  ;  summons  a  parliament 
to  Harlech,  254 ;  meets  his 
French  allies  at  Tenby,  255  ; 
marches  to  Worcester,  256- 
258  ;  retreats  to  Wales,  259  ; 
his  magic  art  again,  260  ;  dis- 
satisfied with  the  French,  261  ; 
secures  exemption  money  from 
Pembroke,  262  ;  signs  the  tri- 
partite indenture  at  Aberda- 
ron,  264-268  ;  his  famous 
letter  to  the  King  of  France, 
269-273 ;  his  fortunes  sensi- 
bly waning,  276  ;  traditions 
of  his  wanderings,  280-283  ; 
movements  uncertain,  284 ; 
relieves  Aberystwith,  291  ;  still 
active  but  no  longer  the  same 
terror  to  England,  294  ;  loses 
Harlech  and  Aberystwith,  295  ; 
his  family  captured,  296  ;  his 
fortunes  sink,  300  ;  relapses 
gradually  into  a  mere  outlaw, 
302  ;  legends  concerning  his 
wanderings,  303  ;  offered  par- 
don by  Henry  V.,  303  ;  claims 


of  Monnington  and  Kent- 
church  as  scene  of  his  death, 
307  ;  estimate  by  Welshmen  of 
his  position,  308 

Glyndwr's  Mount,  103 

Glyndyfrdwy,  88,  91,  100,  104, 
106,  120,  122,  128,  131,  186- 
190,  198 

Gower,  197 

Grendor,  Sir  John,  145, 184,  259, 
290 

Grenowe  ap  Tudor,  127 

Grey,  Reginald,  Earl  of  Ruthin, 
109-124,  154-159,  172,  173 

Grey,  Richard,  Earl  de,  177 

Griffith  ap  Dafydd,  11 5-1 18 

Griffith  ap  Llewelyn  I.,  28,  30, 

31 

Griffith  ap  Llewelyn  II.,  53,  68 
Griffith  ap  Madoc,  85-87 
Griffith,  Sir  John,  252 
Griffith,   son  of  Glyndwr,    165, 

233,  249,  275,  306 
Griffith  y  Baron  Gwyn,  88 
Grosmont,  246,  247,  304 
Gutyn,  Owen,  235 
Gwenllian,  illegitimate  daughter 

of  Glyndwr,  306 
Gwent,  303 
Gwynedd,  description  of,  13 


H 


Hall,  258,  259 
Hanard,  Jankyn,  190 
Hanmer,  family  of,  104,  105 
Hanmer,  Griffith,  128 
Hanmer,  John,  224 
Hardyng,  Chronicle  of,  154-159, 

173,  174,  179 

Harlech,  78,  156,  186,  190,  219, 
220,  231-233,  262,  275,  287, 
288,  293,  295,  296,  323 

Harold,  29 

Haverford-west,  41,  255 

Hebog,  Moel,  280 

Henry  I.,  King,  40 

Henry  II.,  King,  42-45 

Henry  III.,  59-^6 


Index 


355 


Henry  IV.,  93,  94,  121,  125-131, 
136-140,  147-151,  154,  157, 
158,  168-170,  177-181,  185, 
200-207,  210-214,  230,  241- 
244,  256-61, 278,  284-292,  298, 
302 

Henry  VII.,  314 

Henry  VIII.,  315,  319,  325 

Henry,  Prince,  117,  I2i,  125, 
128,  135-137,  148,  185-190, 
198,  202,  205,  210,  227,  240- 
247,  259,  276,  278,  284-295, 
302,  303 

Herbert,  Lord,  232 

Hereford,  193-195,  212-214, 
226,  250,  251,  256,  257,  287, 
288,  295,  317 

Heytely  field,  204 

Higham  Ferrers,  200 

Hoare,  Sir  R.  C,  168 

Holinshead,  164,  204 

Holt  Castle,  87 

Homildon,  battle  of ,  181,  182 

Hopkyn  ap  Thomas,  198 

Hotspur,  131,  135-137,  139-142, 
153,  154,  181,  182,  203-207 

Howel  ap  Edwy,  28 

Howel  ap  Owen  Gwynedd,  45,  46 

Howel  Dda,  21-24 

Howel  Sele,  165-168 

HoM-^el  Vychan,  219 

Hugueville,  Sire  de,  255-258 


lago  ap  Idwal,  28 

lestyn,  38 

Innocent,  Pope,  58 

lolo  Goch,  100-102,    124,    163, 

208,  234,  283,  309 
lolo     Morgan  wg     MSS.,     245, 

281,  294 
Isabel,    daughter    of    Glyndwr, 

105,  129 
Isabella  of  France,  126 


Janet  Crofts,  Glyndwr's  daugh- 
ter, 105 
Jevan  ap  Meredith,  254 


Joan,  wife  of  Llewelyn  II.,  56, 

60,  62 
Joanna  of  Brittany,  168,  183 
John,  King,  56,  57 
John  ap  Howel,  276 


K 


Katherine,  wife  of  Edmund  Mor- 
timer, 233,  296 

Kentchurch,  304 

Kidwelly,  191 

Kingeston,  Archdeacon,  195,196, 
226,  227 


Lacy,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  135 

Lampadarn,  186,  275 

Lampeter,  152 

Leget,  David,  134 

Leicester,  125 

Leland,  189 

Leominster,  211 

Lilleshall,  177 

Lincoln,  177 

Lionel,  son  of  Edmund  Morti- 
mer, 296 

Lichfield,  177,  202 

Llanbadarn,  28,  224,  231 

Llandilo,  76,  185 

Llandovey,  152,  185 

Llanfaes  Abbey,  60 

Llangollen,  102,  123,  280 

Llanrwst,  25,  61,  312 

Llansantffraid,  172 

Llansilin,  loi,  127 

Llewelyn  ap  Griffith,  last  Prince 
of  North  Wales,  65-72 

Llewelyn  ap  lorwerth.  Prince 
of  North  Wales,  55-60 

Llewelyn  ap  Madoc,  86,  87 

Llewelyn  ap  Seisyllt,  Prince  of 
North  Wales,  27,  28 

Llewelyn  of  Cayo,  150 

Lleyn,  promontory  of,  53,  217 

Lloid,  John,  134 

Llywarch,  Hen,  7 

London,  80 

Ludlow,  177,  318 


356 


Index 


Lupus,  Hugh,  Earl  of  Chester, 

32,  33 
Lussan,  Mme.  de,  255 

M 

Machynlleth,  220-225,  269 
Madoc  ap  Griffith,  85 
Madoc  ap  Meredith,  80 
Madoc  ap  Owen  Gwynedd,  46 
Maelgwyn,  Prince  of  Gwynedd, 

232 
Maidstone,  244 
Manorbier  Castle,  41,  47 
March,  Earl  of,  170,  242 
Margaret     Monnington,     Glyn- 

dwr's  daughter,  105 
Matthew  of  Paris,  74 
Melynydd,  317 
Meredith,  son  of  Glyndwr,  105, 

233,. 276,  304,  306 
Meredith  ap  Owen,  118 
Merioneth,  78,  215,  287,  301,  313 
Milford,  254,  255 
Monmouth,  259,  317,  330 
Monnington,  104,  303-305 
Monnow  River,  246 
Montgomery,  32,  146,  177,  317 
Morgan  of  Coity,  37 
Mortimer,  Earl  of,  87 
Mortimer,    Sir    Edmund,     106, 

170-172,   183,   184,  200,    201, 

232,  242,  287,  296 
Mortimer,  Sir  Ralph,  65 
Mynydd-cwm-du,  battle  of,  229 
Mynydd-Hyddgant,    battle    of, 

144 


N 


Nannau,  165-168 
Nevin  tournament,  80 
Newcastle,  126 
Newmarch,  Bernard  de,  36 
Newport,  215,  245 
Newport,  Sir  Edward,  247 
Northampton,  125,  193,  294 
Northumberland,  Earl  of,   199, 

200,  201,  209,  251,  252,  264- 

269,  279 
Nottingham,  177 


Offa,  King  of  Mercia,  8,  13,  19 
Ogof  Dinas,  303 
Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  290 
Oswestry,  loi,  116 
Owen  ap  Griffith,  65,  66 
Owen  Cyfeiliog,  85 
Owen  Gwynedd,  42-45 
Oxford,  133,  134 


Pant-y-wenol,  245 
Pauncefote,  John,  216 
Pembroke,  40,  41,  262,  316 
Pengwern,  7 
Penmynydd,  138,  314 
Pennal,  269 
Pennant,  143,  257 
Perfeddwlad,  the,  54,  57,  67,  71 
Pilleth.  battle  of,  171,  i8i 
Plinlimmon,  142,  143 
Pontefract,  99,  125 
Powys,  description  of,  14 
Powys  Castle,  146 
Pulestone,  128 

R 

Radnor,  142,  317,  329 
Radnor,  New,  145 
Rhondda  valley,  260 
Rhuddlan,  19,  32,  43,  78,  190 
Rhys  ap  Gethin,   171,   190,  233, 

246,  247 
Rhys  ap  Griffith,  289 
Rhys  ap  Jevan,  234 
Rhys  ap  Tudor,  33 
Rhys  Ddu,  298 
Rhys  Dwy,  234 
Richard  II.,  93-99,  121,  203 
Rieux,  Jean  de,  255 
Robert  ap  Jevan,  234 
Roderic  the  Great,  15,  16 
Rug,  306 

Ruthin,  106,  107,  no,  in,  156 
Rutland,  Lord,  152 


Salisbury,  Earl  of,  96,  96 
Salusburys  of  Rug,  305 


Index 


357 


Scott,  Sir  Walter,  i68 

Tudor,  William  and  Rhys, 

138- 

Scrope,  Archbishop,  252 

140,  233,  252 

Scrope,  Sir  Henry,  216 

Turberville,  38 

Scrope  and  Grosvenor  trial. 

89 

Tutbury,  230 

Scudamore,  Alice,  104,  304 

Scudamore,  Philip,  298 

U 

Shakespeare,  181 

Shrewsbury,  7,  58,  68,  77, 

125- 

Uriconium,  2,  7 

128,  177,  198-202,  297,  3 

18 

Usk,  215,  245 

Shrewsbury,  Abbot  of,  205 

Shrewsbury,  battle  of,  203- 

209 

V 

Shropshire,  226,  229,  317 

Simon  de  Montfort,  68 

Valle  Crucis  Abbey,  52,  85, 

280 

Skidmore,  194 

Vychan,  Griffith,    Glynd 

kvr's 

Snowdon,  70,  76,  128,  158, 

172, 

father,  82,  88,  89 

222 

Vychan,  Roger,  222 

Somerset,  Earl  of,  306 

Stafford,  Lord,  206 

W 

Stanley,  Sir  John,  254 

Stove,  Morres,  134 

Warren,  Earl,  87 

Strata  Florida  Abbey,  149, 

152, 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  178 

291 

Waterton,  Hugh  de,  195,  242 

Strathclyde,  19,  20 

Welshpool,   146,    177,  217, 

229, 

Strongbow,  Gilbert  de,  286 

290,  297 

Sycherth,     100-103,    120, 

128, 

Whitmore,  David,  254 

188,  190,  198,  306 

William  HL,  323 
William  Rufus,  34 

T 

William  the  Conqueror,  33 
Winchester,  77 

Talbot,  Earl  of,  120 

Windsor  Castle,  298 

Talbot,  Gilbert,  247,  295,  303 

Woodbury  hill,  257 

Tenby,  41,  256 

Worcester,  210,   227,  228, 

252, 

Thomas,  Prince,  177 

256,  278 

Thomas  ap  Llewelyn,  80 

Worcester,  Percy,  Earl  of. 

152, 

Towy,  Vale  of,  278,  279 

205,  206 

Towyn,  280 

Wynne,   Sir  John,    of   Gwydir, 

Trefgarn,  89 

312,  313 

Tren,  8 

Trevor,    Bishop   of  St.    Asaph, 

Y 

113,  164,  165,  225,  226, 

234, 

249,  299 

Yale,  Lordship  of,  106 

Tripartite  Indenture,  201 

Yonge,  Griffith,  224,  234 

Tudor,  Glyndwr's   brother 

90, 

York,  77,  206,  251 

218,  233,  249 

York,  Duke  of,  214,  227, 

242, 

Tudor,  Owen,  314 

244,  290,  293 

Heroes  of  the  Nations. 


EDITED  BY 


EVELYN  ABBOTT,  M.A., 

Fellow  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. 


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enter  into  the  real  life  of  the  peoples,  and  to  bring  them 
before  the  reader  as  they  actually  lived,  labored,  and 
struggled—  as  they  studied  and  wrote,  and  as  they  amused 
themselves.  In  carrying  out  this  plan,  the  myths,  with 
which  the  history  of  all  lands  begins,  will  not  be  over- 
looked, though  these  will  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
the  actual  history,  so  far  as  the  labors  of  the  accepted 
historical  authorities  have  resulted  in  definite  conclusions. 

The  subjects  of  the  different  volumes  have  been  planned 
to  cover  connecting  and,  as  far  as  possible,  consecutive 
epochs  or  periods,  so  that  the  set  when  completed  will 
present  in  a  comprehensive  narrative  the  chief  events  in 
the  great  Story  OF  THE  NATIONS ;  but  it  is,  of  course, 
not  always  practicable  to  issue  the  several  volumes  in 
their  chronological  order. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS, 


12°  Cloth,  each     . 
Leather,  each 

The  following  are  now  ready  : 


I1.50 
1-75 


GREECE.    Prof.  Jas.  A.  Harrison. 
ROME.     Arthur  Gilman. 
THE  JEWS.  Prof.  James  K.  Hosmer. 
CHALDEA.     Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
GERMANY.     S.  Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY.     Hjalmar  H.  Boyesen. 
SPAIN.     Rev.  E.  E.  and  Susan  Hale. 
HUNGARY.     Prof.  A.  Vdmb6ry. 
CARTHAGE.  Prof.  Alfred  J.  Church. 
THE  SARACENS.     Arthur  Gilman. 
THE  MOORS  IN  SPAIN.      Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE  NORMANS.  Sarah  Orne  Jewett. 
PERSIA.     S.  G.  W.  Benjamin. 
ANCIENT  EGYPT.    Prof.  Geo.  Raw- 

linson. 
ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE.     Prof.  J. 

P.  Mahaffy. 
ASSYRIA.     Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
THE  GOTHS.     Henry  Bradley. 
IRELAND.     Hon.  Emily  Lawless. 
TURKEY.    Stanley  Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA. 

Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
MEDIEVAL  FRANCE.     Prof.  Gus- 

tave  Masson. 
HOLLAND.  Prof.  J.  Thorold  Rogers. 
MEXICO.     Susan  Hale. 
PHOENICIA.     Geo.  Rawlinson. 
THE  HANSA  TOWNS.     Helen  Zim- 

mern. 
EARLY   BRITAIN.      Prof.  Alfred  J. 

Church. 
THE  BARBARY  CORSAIRS.     Stan- 
ley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA.     W.  R.  Morfill. 
THE  JEWS  UNDER  ROME.    W.  D. 

Morrison. 
SCOTLAND.     John  Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND.  R.  Stead  and  Mrs. 

A.  Hug. 
PORTUGAL.     H.  Morse-Stephens. 
THE  BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.  C.  W. 

C.  Oman. 
SICILY.     E.  A.  Freeman. 
THE  TUSCAN  REPUBLICS.     Bella 

Duffy. 
POLAND.    W.  R.  Morfill. 
PARTHIA.     Geo.  Rawlinson. 


JAPAN.     David  Murray. 

THE  CHRISTIAN   RECOVERY  OF 

SPAIN.     H.E.  Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA,        Greville   Tregar- 

then 
SOUTHERN    AFRICA.         Geo.    M. 

THEAL. 
VENICE.     Alethea  Wiel. 
THE  CRUSADES.    T.  S.  Archer  and 

C.  L.  Kingsford. 
VEDIC  INDIA.    Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA.     C.  E.  Maurice. 
CANADA.     J.  G.  Bourinot. 
THE  BALKAN  STATES.     William 

Miller. 
BRITISH  RULE  IN  INDIA.     R.  W. 

Frazer. 
MODERN  FRANCE.  Andr6  Le  Bon. 
THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  BRITISH 

EMPIRE.    Alfred  T.  Story.    Two 

vols. 
THE  FRANKS.     Lewis  Sargeant. 
THE    WEST    INDIES.       Amos    K. 

Fiske. 
THE  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND    IN 

THE   19TH   CENTURY.      Justin 

McCarthy,  M.P.     Two  vols. 
AUSTRIA,    THE    HOME    OF    THE 

HAPSBURG  DYNASTY,  FROM 

1282   TO    THE    PRESENT    DAY. 

Sidney  W^hitman. 
CHINA.     Robt.  K.  Douglass. 
MODERN  SPAIN.    Major  Martin  A. 

S.  Hume. 
MODERN  ITALY.     Pietro  Orsi. 
THE  THIRTEEN  COLONIES. 

Helen  A.  Smith.     Two  vols. 

Other  volumes  in  preparation  are  : 

THE    UNITED    STATES,    1775-1897. 

Prof.    A.    C.    McLaughlin.      Two 

vols. 
BUDDHIST   INDIA.       Prof.   T.  W. 

Rhys-Davids. 
MOHAMMEDAN   INDIA.      Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
WALES  AND  CORNWALL.    Owen 

M.  Edwards. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


